ChronicleX
by Dragon Mistress Syal
Summary: Matt Garetty has been on the run since the devastating fight against Andrew. After overexerting his powers, Matt wakes up to find himself in a school for people called "mutants" ran by a man in a wheelchair. He doesn't trust any of these "mutants," but when armed men attack the school, he is dragged into a battle he doesn't want to be a part of.
1. Chapter 1

**So, here's my new story. Yes, it's been a while, but I've been writing other, non-fanfiction things, and doing school (it's summer now, so there will be no problem there). I will try to update this fanfic regularly at least twice a week.**

**This story is a crossover between X-Men movies and the movie Chronicle. It takes place after Chronicle and somewhat follows the events of X2, but with Matt Garretty from Chronicle inserted and therefore is AU. I'm not sure on the real timelines, but in this universe, the fight at the end of Chronicle happened at the end of January and the events of the first X-Men movie took place in March.**

**No Slash, no main romance plots. **

**I have talked long enough, so now for the first chapter:**

Light. The first thing Matt Garetty saw was blinding light. He squinted his eyes against it until they adjusted enough for him to recognize the fluorescent ceiling lights. Then he recognized a constant beeping sound coming from his right. A heart monitor. How in the world did he end up in a hospital?

Groaning, he tried to push himself up, only to be hit with a wave of pain in his head. He held it in his hands a few seconds until the sharp pain ended. He then took in his surroundings. At first glance, he thought his hypothesis right; the room was white, pristine, and had all of the tools trademark of a hospital room.

How did he get here? Matt strained his memory to remember. He had been fighting Andrew and he had had to—No, that was months ago. A lot had happened since then.

"I see you are awake," a voice interrupted his thoughts. Matt jerked towards him, ready to throw the person into the wall. He stopped however, when he realized it was just an old bald man in a wheel chair.

"Who are you and where am I?" Matt demanded.

"My name is Professor Charles Xavier, and you are at my School for Gifted Youngsters," the man informed civilly.

"I'm at a school?" he asked incredulously. "It looks like a hospital."

"Well, we are in the med bay," a woman with bright red hair said, coming into the room. She was wearing a lab coat and carrying a clipboard, making him sure she was the school nurse. But then again, she didn't look like she could be much older than him. Matt watched her warily as she came over to him and started checking the monitors hooked up to him. "Your vitals seem to be back to normal, and if you let me I'll remove the IV in your arm." He nodded and let her take the needle out of his arm.

He crossed his arms, covering the part in his arm where he knew the hole would quickly heal. Ever since he was shot in the hand all those months ago in Seattle, he had noticed another ability appear; healing. It had taken a few weeks for the bullet hole to close, but there was now only a small pink mark on that palm. Every time he had gotten a cut or scrape since then, it had healed abnormally fast as proof that that power was getting stronger just like the rest of them.

"I'm glad to hear you are awake and healthy," Professor Xavier said. "You've been out almost four days. The bridge must have really done a number on you."

"Four days?! Wait, you know about that?" he asked, the memory returning to him. He had been passing over Boston when an interstate overpass started collapsing. Matt had desperately tried to save as many cars as he could, but all of the cars, semis, and concrete form the bridge had made for the worst he had ever exerted himself. He must have passed out because that was the last thing he remembered before waking up here. "Did anybody die?" he asked.

"Thanks to you, no," the woman said with a smile.

Matt sighed with relief. It felt like every person he saved with his powers helped make up for lives Andrew had destroyed with his.

_I'm always glad to see mutants using their powers to save others, _Matt heard in his head accompanied by the shrill buzzing noise he hadn't heard in months. He expectantly put his hand up to his nose but to his surprise didn't find a nose bleed. "What the…?" he wondered aloud. He'd had a connection with Andrew and Steve, but hearing voices in his head was definitely new.

_I'm sorry about that. You've never had telepathic conversation before, have you? _

"You were in my head!"

"Yes, I was," the professor said in the same voice that he had heard in his head. "I am what is called a telepath, and my ability allows me to communicate with the minds of others. May I inquire who Andrew and Steve are?"

"Get out of my head!" Matt yelled, backing up as much as he could on the small bed.

"My apologies for the intrusion. I'll respect your wishes about your privacy. Now, I'm sure you have many questions, which will be answered, but first we'll let you change and then I will come back to show you to my office."

Professor Xavier rolled his wheelchair out of the pristine room and the redhead followed after giving Matt a pair of clothes to change into instead of the thin hospital gown he was wearing.

**Yes, this chapter was short, but I will try to keep most other chapters in the 1k-2k range.**

**Please read and review. Constructive criticism is always welcome!**


	2. Chapter 2

**I decided to go ahead and post the next chapter. Thanks so much for everyone who read this story, and special thanks to ****_Tala White 14_**** and ****_zeo knight_**** for reviewing. I'm really surprised this story got much attention at all with one of the categories being ****_Chronicle_****, a fandom with all of 16 crossovers (but I'm sure not complaining! I love you all so much!) **

**Kitty Pryde/Shadowcat is in this chapter, and she's based a lot off of the Kitty from ****_X-Men: Evolution_**** because when I started writing this story, I was going to crossover with that instead of the movie!verse. That's my excuse if she's a bit OOC. But she won't be huge in the story since Kitty's not really involved in X2. **

**Oh, and since I forgot on the first chapter: ****_I, Dragon Mistress Syal, don't own the movies in the X-Men series or Chronicle. If I did, I'd be richer and Chronicle would have a sequel. If I magically acquire some of the rights while I'm writing his story, I'll let you know. Otherwise, this disclaimer applies for the whole story. _**

Matt changed quickly and made his way out of the room. If he was stealthy enough he could make it out of this place without having to harm anyone. Somehow, Professor Xavier had powers too, and ones different than those Matt and his friends had. Maybe this "telepathy" was just the next stage in his powers. It sounded similar enough to telekinesis, at least the 'tele-' part. Were there lots of others with powers too? Did they find other meteorites or whatever it was in that hole in the ground?

So many questions buzzed around in Matt's head, but he was more desperate to leave than find those answers right now. These people knew about his powers and what he had done at the bridge; maybe they knew about the Seattle incident too. Maybe this "school" was just a cover for some government agency wanting to experiment on him. The man and the woman, Jean, had seemed nice enough, but they easily could have been acting.

As he walked down the hallway he passed many doors, most unmarked, but a few had labels such as "Danger room" and "Cerebro." He wasn't reckless enough to try a room with danger plainly stated across the door. However, a case with framed suits with X's across the chest made him pause for a moment. He was definitely sure this wasn't a school—no school would have uniforms like that.

He was over halfway to the elevator when he heard high pitched giggling and people talking. Matt tried ducking into the nearest room but found the door to be locked. Panicking, he tried to pick the lock with his powers, but he wasn't focused enough to manage it. Andrew had always been better at doing things that required skill and finesse.

"Why are you trying to break into the food storage room?" a voice asked from behind him. Matt whirled around to see two brunette girls around his age looking at him. They were dressed in normal teenager clothes, except the taller one had on long gloves and a white streak in her hair.

"Um…" He was caught. He could definitely throw them into the wall and make a run for it, but for now he'd play it cool.

"You must be the new kid!" the same one who had talked earlier said cheerily. She stuck a hand out. "I'm Katherine Pryde, but you can call me Kitty. Nice to meet you."

"Nice to meet you too," Matt said warily, shaking her hand before quickly retracting his.

The taller girl rolled her eyes. "Kitty, you're scaring the poor guy. He probably doesn't even know why he's here."

"Of course he does. Or at least, he knows about his powers. Remember, he did the thing with the bridge." She turned to him and smiled. "That was really cool by the way. I wish I could do cool stuff like that. You're a real hero, you know. It was all over the news—not you, just the miraculous save of all the cars."

Matt was slowly backing up a she talked. Even the "students" knew everything. He needed to get out of here now.

"I'm sorry about her, she's a bit in your face, but you'll get used to it," the girl with the streak replied.

"I am not," Kitty protested.

"Are too, don't try and deny it."

"We'll just ask him," Kitty said determinedly. But when the two girls looked, he was running towards the elevator. "Wait, new guy, come back!"

Matt didn't even take the time to press the button to the elevator; he just ripped open the huge steel doors with his mind. However, his escape plan was halted by a figure inside of the elevator.

"While you are a guest here, destroying school property will not be tolerated," said Professor X. "Seeing as you are new here and probably very scared and confused, I will let you off with a warning this time. But please remember to control your powers from now on."

Matt started to protest that he had control over his powers but refrained from it and sounding like a little kid.

"Now, I see you've met Kitty and Rogue, but if they'll excuse us, we will go talk in my office if the elevator still works. Please at least hear what I have to say before running off again. I promise that we do not want to hurt you and have your best interests at heart."

"Bye new guy!" Kitty exclaimed with a wave as Matt got on the elevator with the professor. He'd hear what the man had to say in order to get some answers, and if the office had windows he could fly away at any time he needed. As far as he knew, they only knew about his telekinesis.

The ride up was tense, at least for Matt. At the ground floor the place looked less like a top-secret lab and more like a mansion with wooden floors, long hallways, and ornate decorations. There were also signs, however, of the place having been lived in, such as a coke stain in the carpet and a Nintendo DS lying on a table next to a fancy potted plant.

To his luck, the office did have a window, a huge stained glass one at that. It also had a large wooden desk and plenty of bookshelves with ancient looking books. The professor rolled his wheelchair behind his desk and gestured for Matt to sit in one of the plush chair on the other side of the desk.

Matt pointedly didn't sit down and instead leaned up against a bookshelf. He didn't want to seem too compliant, and escape would be easier if he wasn't in a chair. After almost three months of being on the run and never staying in one place long, Matt was used to following his own rules and not dealing with other people on more than a money transaction basis. Of course, he had run out of the wad of cash he had grabbed from his bedroom before leaving Washington after only a week, so he had resorted to petty thievery but made sure to never take much from any one person. He felt terrible for it, but he reasoned that he had to in order to stay alive.

Professor X rolled his wheel chair behind the desk and said, "You said you didn't want me in your head, and I respect that decision, but if we are to talk civilly I think I need to at least know your name."

"It's Matt."

"Nice to meet you Matt. Now, as I was saying earlier, you are at a school for teenagers much like yourself. You see, Matt, evolution is a constant process, but sometimes it makes a sudden leap. You, like the rest of us here, are the next step in evolution. The X-gene usually shows itself around puberty, but there are rare cases, like yourself, in which it manifests later. This gene can give us remarkable abilities, such as your telekinesis and my telepathy. Of course, most people aren't aware that people have these abilities, so I formed this institute for us mutants to have a place to be surrounded by others like us, a place away from persecution where we can openly use and learn to control our abilities."

"So you're telling me that these powers are inherited?" Matt clarified. The story the professor was giving was nothing like his, but he wanted to make sure he understood theirs. It sounded like these people were born with their powers and they thought he had been too. There was no way they could have known about the glowing meteor anyways. He let himself feel a sliver of hope that maybe he could know others to share his secret with, like he, Andrew, and Steve had.

"The X gene, like any gene, can be inherited, but it can show up without any mutants beforehand in the family because it's a mutation."

"But what am I doing here?"

"Because we wish to help you better control and understand your powers, and here you won't have to hide who you are and what you can do," the professor said.

"So you're asking me to come to your super-powered prep school?" Matt asked. "I am a senior, I mean was." It was April, too late to even deal with going back to school. He didn't say the unspoken words; that he had run away from home all of those months ago, that he had no money to his name, that he had never thought he could do anything as normal as school again.

"It could still be a great opportunity to finish out your school year. There are scholarship options available; the X gene does not discriminate between class," Professor X said coolly. "It would be a great learning experience for you, but if the arrangement doesn't work out for you, you could always go home."

Matt couldn't help but tense at the word _home_. "We will, of course, have to get into contact with your parents. Don't worry, I will take care of most of the talking; you are by far not the first runaway to come to our school," the telepath said understandingly.

"I'm eighteen years old," Matt said in annoyance. Legally, they didn't need to contact his parents and he was an adult. Sure, he had been seventeen up until March, which was way past when he ran away, but they didn't need to know that. "Also, it's not even worth it when there's only one month of school left."

Professor Xavier was silent for a long moment. "Very well. You can stay here for the rest of the year and then our summer program. I can't make you talk to your parents, but it would bring them a piece of mind."

Matt was still wary. He could never go back to Seattle. There were too many memories there, and they might still be looking for him. He couldn't let them know his real name. He'd have to use a fake one. That was nothing new for him, seeing as he'd given dozens to various motel owners over the last few months.

But what if the professor already knew his real name and had contacted his parents? He had apparently been unconscious for days, which was plenty of time to dig in his head and find out everything about him. Surely there was a way, other than his word, to keep the telepath out of his head. Even if he stayed true to his word, there might be others with the same powers out there. In his head, Matt envisioned an impenetrable wall around his thoughts and memories and with the slight push of his powers solidified it.

He watched the man in the wheelchair closely for any reaction, but saw none. Maybe it hadn't worked, or he hadn't even been in his head at the time.

Professor X said, "Here's a deal: today is Friday, but you can stay here until Sunday to meet everybody and see if you like it here before deciding whether or not to stay more permanently."

He almost declined, but something stopped him. This could be his chance to stop running, to stop being forced to live below the law, to have a real place to stay with friends. A chance to be just a normal teenaged high-schooler.

"I'll do it," he finally caved. "But I can leave any time I want."

At the least, he'd have a nice place to stay and food to eat for a few nights before running away again.

"Very well then," Professor X said as he rolled his wheelchair out from behind the desk, "but I'm sure you'll stay here longer than you expect. I will now have Jean show you to your room. Your roommate should be back from training in about fifteen minutes."

Matt suppressed a groan. He'd have no privacy sharing a room with others.

He noticed the bald man stare off into space, his fingers to his temples. He could only assume that he was doing the telepathy thing with this Jean.

After only a minute, the redhead that he had seen in the med bay came into the office, no longer wearing the lab coat. Now that he got a closer look, he could tell that she was actually in her late twenties. "Hi," she said. She held her hand out to shake. "Sorry I didn't introduce myself earlier. I'm Jean Grey, and the professor told me to bring you to your room." After he shook her hand she turned to Professor X. "He's staying with Bobby, right?"

"Yes," he answered. "I'll let you two get going. I have a session to oversee in the Danger Room." He rolled out without another word.

**Reviews are the fabric of the universe. **


	3. Chapter 3

**Thanks again for the reads and reviews!**

**Now introducing: Bobby Drake!**

The room looked exactly as he had expected—like a college dorm room. Each side of the room had a twin bed, a nightstand, a dresser, and a desk. A bathroom was attached to the room too. One side of the room was sparsely decorated with a couple posters and had some school books on its desk. The other side of the room was bare and obviously going to be his.

"We'll loan you some money to buy clothes and things," Jean said from the doorway as Matt inspected the room.

He waved her away. "It's fine. I took some money with me. I'll go shopping on my own." It wasn't a complete lie: he had taken money when he had run away, but that had run out months ago. Still, he did need clothes, and lifting a few outfits would be worth not being in their debt.

He knew that Jean knew he was lying, but she just nodded and closed the door, leaving him alone. She probably thought she knew what he was going through, probably had dealt with many disgruntled runaway teens. However, most other teens hadn't killed their cousin in a massive fight on the news. The TV crews had never identified Matt, thankfully, but they had identified Andrew and released his name to the public as the cause but also a casualty of the so-called "Seattle Incident."

Matt knew—because he had checked them out once because of an ironic sense of curiosity—that there were entire blogs dedicated to discussing and speculating over the event. He had never seen his name pop up in any of them though.

He flopped down on the bed and rubbed his head. He still had a lingering headache from the ordeal with the bridge and just the stress of the day. He must have dozed off because the next thing he knew was someone opening the door.

"Are you my new roomie?" Matt heard a voice ask. He lifted his head to see a boy about his age with blond hair standing in the room.

"No," Matt said. "I'm just crashing here until your professor realizes I don't belong and am just here in hopes he'll feed me."

The other boy stared at him for a moment before smiling. "Well, it's nice to meet you. I'm Bobby Drake. Have you gotten the tour yet? I'm sure Kitty would be super glad to lead you around."

Matt sat up as Bobby sat on his own bed. "Isn't that the perky brunette? Cause I think I've already met her."

Bobby nodded. "Yep. So, where're you from? Oh, and can I have a name?"

"Way west. And it's Matt." He purposely didn't give a last name, as he wasn't sure which one he was going with: Garetty was definitely out of the question.

"So, are you hungry, or do you want to get settled in first?"

"Food sounds good." Matt stood up and followed Bobby out into the hallway and down a set of stairs to the ground floor. They passed a large dining room and went instead into a kitchen that had a table and six chairs in it.

"Of course, not everybody can fit in here, but lots of times we'll eat smaller meals in here," Bobby said as he started going through the cabinets. He threw Matt a microwaveable meal. "Hope you like chicken and mashed potatoes because it's all we have." Matt caught the meal without his powers and put it into the microwave for two minutes.

Bobby seemed interesting, and Matt did like him, but what he had said earlier was true—he didn't plan on staying here long. He decided he could be nice and friendly, at least. He hadn't had a normal conversation with another teenager in a while, and he was going to relish in the sense of normalcy while he could.

"So, do all private schools leave the kids to fend for themselves with microwave meals?" Matt asked jokingly. "I would think you would have a private chef or something."

Bobby laughed and rolled his eyes. "I've never been to another private school, so I'm not sure. But this isn't a normal school so who knows."

Right, Matt had almost forgotten, this place was interested in his powers. Did Bobby have powers? Before he could ask, the microwave went off. He got his meal out and let it cool while Bobby's was cooking. Then, one of the girls from earlier walked in, the one with the streak in her hair and the gloves.

"Hey, Rouge," Bobby said with a smile.

"Hey Bobby," she replied with a smile back. She opened the fridge and pulled out a slice of leftover pizza that she put on a paper plate. Matt noticed that strangely she didn't take her gloves off even to eat. Germaphobe?

"You didn't tell me there was pizza," Matt commented as Bobby sat down beside Rouge at the small table.

Bobby shrugged and dug into his microwave meal, not even letting it cool down.

Matt took a little more time to eat in order to try and not look like he was starving, even though he was.

"So, Rouge, that's an unusual name," Matt commented.

"It's a nickname," she replied coolly.

"Oh, okay."

"Lighten up on the new guy," Bobby told her playfully.

"Aren't you a little old to be a new guy?" Rouge asked.

"Um, I'm not sure how to reply to that…?" Matt in confusion. "Oh, wait, yeah, I guess I am. I completely forgot that I'm supposed to graduating soon with all the stuff that's happened…" he trailed off, realizing he was about to reveal too much.

The other two didn't seem to notice though, so he just continued eating. Bobby and Rouge talked in a casual way that made him think they might be dating, but he wasn't sure since the two weren't holding hands or any other sign of PDA. Of course, they could just be being polite in front of him.

"I'm going back up to the room," Matt said after he finished eating. "I know my way."

"Okay. But you have to get up early tomorrow for _orientation_," Bobby said.

"Okay…" Matt said as he left the kitchen. He had meant to spend the time after supper to explore the place, but he got hit with a sudden wave of drowsiness, so he actually returned to his room and fell asleep almost instantly.

_"__You betrayed me!" Andrew screamed._

_"__You can't do this Andrew!" Matt yelled back. He was back in Seattle and floating high in the air._

_"__Yes, I can. Can't you see, Matt? We were destined for something more, something greater! These powers chose us, and you are turning your back on them."_

_"__And you're turning your back on sanity! Can't you see this is wrong, Andrew?" When he looked into his cousin's eyes, all he could see was the crazy glint of being high on power._

_"__We could have had it all, Matt! But you're weak! You can't seize what's rightfully yours!" A car flew by Matt, and he flew out of the way._

_"__This isn't ours, Andrew! We're just kids with powers we don't understand!"_

_Andrew smiled again, but this time it wasn't the shy smile of his cousin or even the crazed smile of power. It full of not hate but pity and some other emotion that Matt couldn't pinpoint. And his eyes, Andrew's eyes glowed with the same sickly reddish white of the crystal that had started this all. "Oh, Matthew, one day you will understand. Change is coming, and you will be at the center of it. You are more powerful than you know, but you don't know how to use it." Andrew raised a hand towards Matt and suddenly, he was falling, falling, falling…_

Matt woke up suddenly, panting and drenched in sweat. A look at the clock on the nightstand showed that it was almost six. He tried to remember the dream, but the details were already leaving him. He had dreamt about that night in Seattle many times, but this time had felt different somehow.

Bobby came out of the bathroom, his hair slightly wet. "Sorry for not waking you, man. Who's Andrew?"

"No one," Matt said, standing up abruptly and pushing past Bobby to get into the bathroom.

**Remember the 3 R's: read, review, reread! ****okay, fine, I couldn't think of a third R just let me feel witty**


	4. Chapter 4

**As always, thanks for everything you do, whether it's faving, following, reviewing, or just reading. Here's chapter four, in which Matt has his "orientation" in the form of a danger room session.**

The "Danger Room" didn't look like much, but he was sure that they didn't name it that for nothing. It was the size of a school gymnasium, but there were no bleachers and all of the walls were metal. If he looked up, Matt could see what must have been a two-way mirror, giving him the mirror side. It reminded him of the windows seen used on police shows, but it was probably Professor Baldy on the other side, not the cops. That didn't make Matt feel any better.

Bobby had let him borrow a shirt and a pair of sweats that were a bit small on him and taken him on his "orientation," if one could call it that. Really, he just led Matt down the hallway, pointing out everyone's bedrooms and then some classrooms. Bobby had then taken him down the elevator—which's door was already fixed—and down to the room labeled "Danger Room."

"Don't worry," Bobby had said. "On lower levels, you're not in any actual danger. This is just a training room and you're getting an evaluation."

"Evaluated on what?"

"How good you are," was all the answer Bobby had given him.

The memory made Matt scowl. Way to be vague. Now he was just standing here waiting for an evaluator to show up or scientists to flood the room and decide that his powers made him more useful as a test subject than as a student.

Finally, he heard Professor Xavier talk through what must be an intercom. "Are you ready, Matt?" he asked.

"Ready for what?" he asked.

"A simulation."

"Of what kind?"

"We just want to see the extent of your abilities so we know where to place you. Don't worry, you're not getting graded and you won't be in any real danger."

There were so many more questions and snarky remarks that Matt wanted to make, but he was sure that that was all he was getting out of the professor. "I'm ready," he said, putting lots of confidence behind the remark and staring right up at the window he was sure the professor and some others were behind. He wasn't nervous about performing well since Andrew wasn't here to show him up; he was actually nervous of doing too well and being seen as a complete freak or perfect test subject.

Matt resolved to hold back.

Suddenly, a metal disk flew towards his face. He barely had time to react as he brought his arm up to deflect the disk, sending it harmlessly towards a wall.

Now on high alert, Matt got down into a defensive stance and looked around him, waiting for another attack. This time there were two disks, which he easily deflected since he was expecting them. For the next few minutes disks and other objects flew at him, but Matt simply misdirected or stopped them. Then, a concrete block the size of a horse fell from the ceiling. _Where are they getting this stuff? _Matt jumped out of the way and slightly pushed it away. He made sure not to fly out of the way because he wasn't sure if they knew about that power. It could work to his advantage to have a power up his sleeve.

"Are you sure you're not trying to kill me?" he asked.

"Of course not, Matt," Professor Xavier's reassuring voice said. "How heavy of an object can you lift?"

Matt knew he could easily lift cars, but he wasn't sure where his limits currently were. During the bridge ordeal he had gotten at least five cars at once, but that plus the concrete of the bridge had proved to be far beyond his limits. "A car," Matt finally answered.

To his surprise, a car was the next thing to drop into the room. Matt caught it with his telekinesis and threw it into the wall. He allowed himself a little smirk at the display. His nose hadn't bled at all throughout the entire test.

No comment came through the loudspeakers, though. The floor where Matt was standing suddenly rose up. "Now I want to test agility."

He was only about fifteen feet up, so he easily jumped down, using a bit of his flight to cushion the fall. All around him, objects one would find on an obstacle course rose from the metal floor. It was obvious that he was supposed to run it, so he did.

As far as the spectators needed to know, telekinesis was his primary power. Therefore, he didn't show off any tricks on the obstacle course: he only jumped as high as a normal person would.

"Are we done?" he asked after he ran the course. "I'm hungry."

"Of course, Matt," Professor Xavier said. "Please see me in my office this afternoon around three. Until then, your time is free."

"Cool, Prof," Matt said with a mock salute. To Matt's right, the door to the Danger Room opened up, so he went through it and back upstairs.

"That was an impressive session," Jean remarked as she reviewed the video of the Danger Room session.

Professor Xavier nodded in agreement.

"Why are we just now finding this kid? Isn't he a little old for having new powers?" Scott asked.

"With that level of control, his powers can't be that new," Jean said. "Trust me on that."

"Then why hasn't Cerebro picked up on him before?"

"I'm not entirely sure, but when he was in the coma I tried to delve into his brain," the professor said. "His brainwaves were…different from any mutant I have encountered before."

"Different how?" Scott asked warily.

"It's not in a way I could explain, but his life appeared normal until about six months ago, at which point I hit a 'wall' of sorts."

"So, is he a possible telepath, then?"

The professor shook his head. "No, his mental shields were nothing like ones employed by telepaths, but still quite impressive. I could reach his conscious thoughts when he woke up, but once he realized what I was doing, he quickly consciously blocked me out."

Jean was silent for a moment before she input, "When he was unconscious, it felt like something…else was blocking his thoughts."

"He's working with a telepath?" Scott asked.

"Definitely not," Professor Xavier answered. "An unknown outside source blocked many of his memories, and he blocked them once he was conscious."

Scott sighed in annoyance. He suspected this kid was going to give them lots of trouble. "So what do we know about him?"

"His name is Matthew Garetty, he's from a suburb of Seattle, and his parents' names are Paul and Deborah Garetty," Jean said.

"And yes, I did contact his mother a few days ago, who was surprised to hear that her son was alive and well," Professor Xavier answered before Scott could ask. "She begged to get in contact with her son, saying that she hadn't seen him in months. I told her that he was still avoiding home but it wasn't her fault. She replied with, 'I know. Please tell him it's not his fault,' and hung up."

"That's weird," Scott remarked. "Did you tell Matt? Do you know what isn't his fault or why he really left?"

"No," Xavier said. "He doesn't trust us, so for now he doesn't need to know that I contacted his mother. We all keep secrets for reasons, so I'll keep mine and respect his."


	5. Chapter 5

**Disclaimer: There are mentions of things in the DC comic universe in here, but since X-Men is Marvel, I'm just going to say that in this universe everything DC is just fictional while Marvel stuff is really happening. I still own nothing though.**

To Matt's dismay, the pizza that Rogue had eaten was gone, leaving only an empty Domino's box in the trashcan. He started digging through the pantry instead to find the stuff for making a sandwich.

"What are you doing?" he heard a voice ask right behind him.

He jumped and turned around, dropping the peanut butter but catching it with his telekinesis and setting it on the counter.

"Making a sandwich," Matt answered hastily, purposely not looking at the peanut butter. He recognized the girl as Kitty.

Kitty smiled. "Oh, cool, can you get me the ham then?"

"Yeah," Matt said. He reached into the fridge—with his hand—and got Kitty the ham. "I didn't hear you come in."

"Well, I am good at stealth," Kitty said proudly. "Hey, I didn't know you were telekinetic."

Matt wasn't sure that he was going to reply, but he finally said, "Yeah. What can you do?"

She smiled and reached her hand _through _the fridge door to bring out a package of cheese.

_Well, that was different, _Matt thought. "Can you do it with your whole body," he asked.

"Yeah, that's why you didn't hear me come in. I came through the door."

They finished making their sandwiches and sat down at the table. "Does everyone here have, um, powers?" Matt asked after taking a bite of his sandwich.

Kitty nodded. "Yep. That's what the school is for. You don't have to worry about people seeing your powers, and you can practice them."

Matt simply nodded. He didn't feel he needed practice, but for now, the idea of being able to simply _use _his powers whenever he wanted sounded really nice.

"Is that what the 'throw stuff at you in hopes you don't die' room is for?"

"Yeah. I heard you had a session this morning, and you did pretty good."

Matt stiffened. "Who all saw that?"

"Don't worry, it was probably just Jean and Ororo and Scott and the Professor, since Logan's gone."

"That sounds like a lot of people," Matt commented.

"But they're all teachers so it makes sense they'd watch," Kitty said. "How long have you had your powers?"

"About seven months," Matt said, opting for the truth.

"Aren't you a little old to just be getting them?"

"I'm eighteen."

"Well you just must be late then," Kitty concluded. "I was fifteen when I first discovered mine."

"How old are you now?"

"Seventeen in July," she replied.

Matt nodded. He had guessed she was probably sixteen. He finished his sandwich and threw his paper plate away before leaving the room. "Nice meeting you Kitty," he said as he left.

"You too!" she said with a smile. Matt rolled his eyes. She seemed nice, but was surprisingly chipper.

Matt came back from town with three changes of clothes that he had "acquired." He hadn't stolen anything fancy or expensive, but he didn't want to have to keep borrowing Bobby's stuff. He had had no trouble getting out of the building, and no one had questioned him when he simply went through the front door. Once in the woods, he had taken off flying to get into town and also scope the area.

He found that he was in Westchester County, New York, and the date was April 18. Matt felt a pang of homesickness: in only a month he was supposed to graduate high school. He had planned on going to Washington University and majoring in psychology with a minor in business. Of course, those plans had gotten derailed a long time ago.

Now it was almost three and he was dreading the meeting with Professor Xavier. He'd just have to do more lying. At least they had come up with their own story for how he had gotten his powers. He couldn't tell the truth without talking about Andrew or Steve, which was something he _really _didn't want to do.

Sighing, Matt steeled himself for the talk. He knew the tells of lying, and he had been lying for months now, first to his parents and other kids at school, then to anyone and everyone he met. What worried him was the thought-reading. He again envisioned walls in his head, hopefully locking his thoughts and memories away from prying minds.

The bald professor was sitting in his wheelchair looking out the window when Matt came in. Matt didn't even bother with clearing his throat or anything, and he simply sat down.

Professor Xavier turned around and smiled at Matt. Matt didn't smile back; he kept his face expressionless. "So, how are you enjoying your stay here so far? I see you have already acquired some new clothes," he said conversationally.

"It's acceptable," Matt said. "Town was fine too."

"Have you contacted your parents yet?"

"No."

"That's a shame. Now, what I really want to discuss is your plans for the future."

Matt lifted an eyebrow. "What about it? I can't stay here forever, if that's what you're implying. I was actually thinking of getting a cape and red tights and running around saving people. How's the name Superman sound?" Actually, Matt _had _saved a few people in the last few months, even outside of stopping the bridge collapse. However, he wanted to keep up a defensive and disbelieving attitude for now; sarcasm is always a great defense.

Xavier ignored Matt's sarcasm and continued, "I was actually thinking you could just stay here for the summer. You already have remarkable control over your powers, but I think it would be a good experience for you."

"To be a camp counselor like Bobby?"

The professor chuckled. "That's not exactly what Bobby will be doing. He will be more of a mentor for younger students that come in during the summer. Abilities don't always wait for the beginning of the school year to manifest."

"How rude of them," Matt said sarcastically.

"Anyways, it would be good for you to have a constant environment for a while, but also you could benefit from our training."

"Training?" Matt asked, trying to hide his interest.

The older man nodded. "Yes, as you saw this morning, we have a great facility for training through the use of holograms."

"But if those were holograms, then how did my powers work on them?" Matt wondered aloud. "They definitely had real weight, I could feel it."

"Well, _those_ weren't actually holograms, but Jean would have kept any from actually hitting you."

"Thanks," Matt muttered.

"You obviously are quite strong, but you were lacking in the agility course section. Also, while you could control the objects fine, Jean could teach you better techniques for utilizing them as tools."

"You mean weapons," Matt said bluntly.

"If need be."

Matt snorted. "You said this was a school, but of course, it's a training facility. I bet you have the students under some sort of military training. I bet Kitty can kill me in five different ways using a hairbrush and Bobby is fluent in ten languages. What are you? CIA? NSA? MIB? Someone I've never heard of 'cause it's that secret?"

Xavier pursed his lips for a moment and looked at Matt in annoyance. "I assure you that while we do combat training here, we are not associated with any government agency, especially not the military or spies."

"Then why would you need combat training? Is this like a little Justice League headquarters?"

"The Justice League is fictional, but I assure you that everything we do here is very real and very important. Now, I'd suggest that you pay attention to the news and the world around you because we can't run from what's coming. I know you're more powerful that you're letting on, and you'll probably be forced to pick a side. I just hope you pick the right one."

**Please tell me what you think. Even constructive criticism is good because I'll only improve for you!**


	6. Chapter 6

**Again, thanks to Tala White 14 for reviewing, and just to anyone who reads this! Merci beaucoup!**

**Enjoy, s'il vous plait!**

Matt didn't know where a computer was at the mansion and they could read his search history there. That's how he ended up at the Westchester County Public Library on a computer in the back. Any time a helper came by he waved her off, saying that he was working on a school project. Well, it kinda was that in a weird sort of way, Matt thought to himself.

A simple Google search on "mutants" brought up a whole slew of articles.

A couple of names kept popping up, especially Senator Kelly. The name was vaguely familiar to Matt, but he had never heard about a "Mutant Registration Act" before. Matt found a video of Kelly saying that mutants were abominations and a threat to society. Another video was of a debate between him and Jean Grey over the Act and mutant rights. A later article claimed that he was found stumbling around naked on a random beach. Yet another video showed the senator calling off the Mutant Registration Act and advocating more for mutant rights. Matt wondered what had changed, but either way, he didn't like this guy.

Matt was surprised that he hadn't heard about the whole entire mutant ordeal. Maybe the professor had a point about how he needed to pay attention to the news. But then again, Matt had been worried about other things than the news, such as staying alive and undiscovered. He was suddenly very glad that he had tried so hard to never have his powers discovered. Someone else would have thought he was a mutant, and that might not have ended well. He remembered once reading an article about the Seattle Incident where someone had speculated that the two boys fighting were very powerful mutants. At the time he hadn't realize they meant mutants as part of a large group that was becoming more known—he'd thought that the author thought they were flukes, isolated incidents of a mutation.

He then delved more into this "Mutant Registration Act." From what he could find, the basis of the Act was to make all mutants register their personal information along with abilities. He knew automatically that anything asking a specific group of people to all identify themselves wouldn't end well, especially with all of the hate he was seeing directed at mutants. It had been shown time and time again in history that fear can push people to get laws passed that aren't actually beneficial in the long run.

There were also some reports on a powerful mutant known as "Magneto." Matt snorted at the name—was the guy a living magnet? According to one article—by a tabloid, though—he controlled metal, which explained the magnet name, and had tried to do something bad at the previous UN meeting. It read, "We aren't sure what the machine would have done, but anything made by a mutant must be bad. Magneto has been detained and taken to a secret underground facility that we can't access. We would like you to sign a petition to help us gain access…" _Wow_, Matt thought, _they had absolutely no useful information. They don't even know his real name and can't get any concrete evidence. _Anyways, he really couldn't trust everything said by a tabloid that also managed to somehow connect this guy to the Kennedy assassination. _They're really grasping at straws._

He found a couple of pictures of Magneto, all of which showed him wearing a flowing red cape and red helmet. There weren't any good looks at his face, though, but it was obviously a man—probably an older one—from his build.

He gave up on this Magneto guy and went through more mutants, but none had as much as Magneto. All that he could really tell is that Magneto was probably the "villain" in this story; however, the "heroes" were unidentifiable with only blurry pictures from a great distance. _What have I gotten myself into? And how is Professor Baldy involved? _

In one picture taken from a helicopter of the events in New York, he thought he saw a bright white streak of hair on a brown head. He gasped in shock but assured himself that Rogue couldn't be the only person with a white streak of hair.

Once he had found all that he could on mutants, he resolved himself and typed in "Seattle incident January." Lots of searches popped up, but there was nothing major that he hadn't read before. Just more speculation and bogus theories. The one saying that Andrew was actually an alien invader was new though.

But then on the sixth page he found an old video interview with Deborah Garetty. Matt stopped breathing for a moment. The info read, "Interview with aunt of Andrew Detmer a month after the catastrophe in Seattle." That would have been two months ago, just after they identified Andrew. He held the pointer over the play button a full minute before he finally clicked play.

The first thing he noticed was how ragged his mom looked. Her eyes had bags under them and her makeup was splotchy. The interview wasn't happening at his house, but at what looked like a grocery store parking lot. He recognized with a pang that it was the parking lot in which he, Andrew, and Steve had first practiced moving cars. They must have ambushed his mom once they found out she was related to Andrew.

_"__Mrs. Garetty, how do you feel about all of the things your nephew did?" The reporter asked, shoving a microphone in her face._

_"__I feel that you should let me load my eggs," his mom said, pushing past the reporter._

_The reporter gave a meaningful look to the camera. "Did you know that Andrew Detmer could do those things."_

_"__No."_

_"__Could these powers be genetic?"_

_His mom paused for a moment and set down the bag she was carrying in the trunk of her car. _Matt held his breath as he watched his mother turn to the camera. _"If you are implying that anyone else in our family can fly, then no, none of us can. He was just a poor boy going through a hard time." Deborah Garetty opened the front door of her car and got in. But before she could close it, the interviewer stuck her microphone in her face again._

_"__Do you know who the person that fought Andrew was? Was it someone close to him? Someone you know? Or just some random hero?"_

_"__My nephew was a lot of things, but he wasn't a villain. No, I have no clue who else was involved." She glared at the man as she stuck her keys into the ignition._

_"__What about your son? I heard that he's been missing—"_

_At the mention of her son, Mrs. Garetty slammed the door and started the car, leaving a stunned reporter standing there._

_"__Well that was interesting," the reporter said as he watched the car drive off. He turned to the camera with a huge, fake smile, "Anyways, that, Seattle, was Deborah Garetty, the aunt of Andrew Detmer. I'm Carlton Pope reporting live. Now over to you, Sarah, with the weather."_

The video ended then, leaving Matt staring at it in shock. How had he not seen this one before? He felt a pang of guilt at leaving his mother alone to deal with the media, but he knew that he needed to stay away from Seattle as long as possible in case someone recognized him. At least, that was what he told himself. Maybe he just was too weak to deal with what had happened.

Thankfully, he found no more videos of any of his family getting interviewed. Well, there was one of Andrew's father once he got out of the hospital, but Matt couldn't look at the bastard's face for a minute, let alone the five of the video.

He moaned and put his head in his hands. Why him? Couldn't some other poor kids be involved in this except him, his cousin, and his friend? These stupid powers had been fun at first but ended up ruining his life and ending theirs. Maybe the anti-mutant people were right: maybe no one deserved powers outside of what was normal. Or maybe he just hadn't been strong enough to save them.

**Follow the three fabulous F's: Favorite, Follow, Fan over!**

**btw, "merci beaucoup" is French for "thank you very much"; "s'il vous plait" is French for "if it pleases you," or just "please"**


	7. Chapter 7

The sun was already far in the sky when Matt woke up. A look at the clock showed that it was almost ten. He had gotten in the habit of waking up early so that the motel owners never caught him at checkout or cleanup time. He sometimes actually paid for a room whenever he could get a job for a few days, but he never stayed somewhere long enough to get a good stash going.

He got up, took a shower, and got dressed before making his way to the kitchen for breakfast. "How nice of you to join us," a guy he didn't recognize said as Matt poured a bowl of cereal.

At the table were Rogue, Bobby, and a blond guy their age he didn't recognize. "Like you ever wake up before ten on the weekends, John," Bobby teased.

Matt sat down in an empty seat and started eating.

"I need my beauty sleep," John teased back. "How do you think I get this hot?"

"By setting fires," Bobby said sarcastically. John smiled at the comment as if it was a compliment. Was this guy a pyromaniac?

John seemed to finally re-notice Matt. "Aw, newbie, sorry for my friend's rudeness here. My name is John Allerdyce. Welcome to Xavier's School for Freaking Freaks. What's your specialty?"

Matt glanced at Bobby, who was rolling his eyes. "I'm telekinetic," he finally answered. "And you? Wait, let me guess: you're a firebender."

John raised an eyebrow and clapped. "Wow, someone here's psychic too. By the way, I used to love that show." He pulled a lighter out of his pocket and lit it. The flame grew and started moving around, forming a ball in the air that floated right above John's hand.

"Not at the table, John," Bobby said in exasperation. He flicked his hand at the ball of flame and it froze in mid-air before falling and crashing on the floor.

"Cool," Matt said. It was weird how he and Andrew and Steve had all had the same powers, but among others there seemed to be a large array of powers. It was probably because he and his friends had gotten theirs from the same source. He turned to Rouge to ask what she could do, but when he looked at her, she scowled and looked away, obviously not up for a demonstration. He looked back over to see John looking at him expectantly. "What?" Matt asked.

"Aren't you going to show us yours?" John then giggled at his innuendo.

Matt ignored that and went with the simple task of lifting his bowl of cereal, being careful not to let it spill. He set it back down and resumed eating.

"That wasn't impressive," John said.

Matt smiled at the challenge. "I could lift you and throw you through the wall. Would _that_ be impressive?"

"Not really."

"Shame. It would have been fun."

"Y'all are idiots," Rouge said.

"Thank you," John said with a smile.

"So, what do we do on Sundays?" Matt asked. "Superpower training? Teambuilding exercises? Is there a mutant help group?"

"Actually," Rogue said, "it's the weekend. Most of the students get those free."

"Most? I haven't even seen any kids here at all. Or many people period. Are there like only ten people at this school?"

Rouge rolled her eyes. "That's because it's the weekend. Some kids go home to their parents, those who can. Also, you've been here all of what, two days?"

Matt had to admit that she had a point. He shrugged. "I guess I was just expecting people running around the halls and stuff. I've never really been to a private school. Let alone one like this."

John chuckled humorlessly. "Yeah, this school is different. But you should fit right in. Your power's not even unique."

"Um, was that an insult?"

"Nope. You should actually be honored to have one of the same powers as the marvelous Jean Grey. Wait, are you also a telepath?"

"Not that I know of," Matt said. He was glad that they hadn't gotten that power—it would be really weird to have to listen to everyone's random thoughts all of the time.

"Good. I don't need someone else invading my private thoughts."

"You know they never just read your thoughts," Bobby corrected defensively. "They do respect your privacy."

"No, I agree with him. It is kinda creepy," Matt said.

"Still, just be glad it's someone on our side that has that power. Imagine an enemy who could read your mind," Bobby said.

"Enemy?" Matt asked curiously.

"You know, like a bully at school or someone like that," Bobby said quickly, as if covering his tracks.

"Yeah, that would suck," Matt agreed. But bullies at school were obviously not the people Bobby was talking about fighting.

**Sorry for the short chapter, but the next chapter needs to all be together. I'll probably put it up Thursday**


	8. Chapter 8

**As promised, here's chapter 8. Because the last one had to be cut off short, this one is a lot longer, about 2.6k words**

**Again, so many thanks to everyone who reads this story. You keep me going.**

**This chapter is Matt's first official day as a student at Xavier's School For Gifted Youngsters. Enjoy!**

"Class starts in 45 minutes," Bobby yelled. Matt felt piece of paper fall on his head. "Here's your schedule."

Matt groaned and grabbed the sheet of paper before sitting up. "Genetics? Abilities? What type of schedule is this?" he asked, looking over the sheet. He noticed that there was also a three-hour long class for Saturday labeled only "practice." "What is this on Saturday?" Matt asked. "I never agreed to join any sports teams." Would sports teams even be fair with their abilities? Matt could just move the ball in the air.

"If you have problems with it, talk to the professor, not me," Bobby said. Bobby was already fully dressed and standing by the door. "Hurry up already."

Matt got out of bed and quickly dressed before following Bobby out of the room. "You don't have time to eat, so here's a poptart," the other boy said, handing him a s'mores poptart.

"Thanks," Matt said as he ripped into the poptart.

Thankfully, his schedule was almost the same as Bobby's. Their first class was Trigonometry. "I've already taken trig," Matt said as they came to a room. It wasn't that he was necessarily bad at math—he had a high B in it—he just wasn't a big fan. Also, repeating a course didn't sound like fun.

"There's only like a month left of school," Bobby said with annoyance. "You'll survive."

Matt rolled his eyes but entered the classroom anyway. The teacher, whom he didn't recognize, didn't acknowledge him or introduce him to the class, which was fine with Matt. He just sat down in an empty seat and didn't answer any questions. The other students—which were all of high school age, but he didn't recognize most of them—gave him a curious glance and then just paid attention to the lesson.

The class passed quickly and Matt didn't have any trouble with it, since he had taken trig last semester at his old school—the trig wheel was easy if you knew how the values flipped over the x and y axes.

After Trig was History, which—to his surprise—was normal history, not mutant history. The teacher was a dark-skinned woman with white hair, but it looked dyed that color instead of being white because of age.

"Ah, Mr. Garetty, welcome. My name is Ms. Munroe," she introduced herself politely with a smile. "You can sit in the back next to Jubilation."

"How did you—" Matt started, but just shook his head and sat in the back where Ms. Munroe had pointed. The stupid professor must have read his mind and found out his last name. Or maybe they had put his face through a database.

His thoughts were interrupted by the girl beside him. She had black hair in multiple ponytails. "Hi," she said in a friendly way, "my name is Jubilation, but everyone just calls me Jubilee."

Matt gave her a weak smile. "I'm Matt."

Ms. Munroe then called for the class's attention and called roll. She then asked everyone to get out their books and turn to page 331. Jubilee let Matt use her book. The lesson was over the Watergate scandal, which Matt found boring. Politicians were stupid and greedy, and their motives were always bogus and not what they seemed. Also, there were so many names to remember. Who really cared about Archibald Cox or Carl Bernstein or the twenty other names the state thought were important?

His next class was Ethics, which was taught by Professor X. Matt scowled at the professor as he entered the room and sat as far in the back as possible. He found it ironic that someone who could read people's minds would teach an ethics class.

The class was as preachy as he had expected; Professor Xavier would give them scenarios and ask them what the right thing to do was. While Matt did usually agree with what the consensus was, he was purposely ignoring the conversation in spite of Professor X.

"What do you think about that, Matt?" the professor asked.

His head snapped up. "What, sir?" He mentally scolded himself for using manners towards the man whom had read his mind.

"What would you do in that situation?" The professor didn't seem annoyed but instead genuinely curious.

Matt quickly scanned through the conversation in his head, trying to figure out what the last scenario discussed had been. Oh, he remembered, it had been about what one does when a corrupt politician abuses his power but one can't find justifiable proof of this.

"Is it not our duty as citizens of a democracy to stop the abuse of power?" Matt asked rhetorically. He resisted his urge to smirk at his ability to bull-shit. "I think that sometimes one has to take drastic and questionable measures in order to keep the balance of power. Hypothetically, of course," he added. "I'd really probably just contact the authorities with what I know."

The professor gave Matt an odd look, but the ringing of the bell interrupted any further discussion.

This school was small enough that everyone ate lunch at the same time. Even though his classes had been full of older teens, the cafeteria—"dining hall"— had a range of people from about nine to his age. After getting some of the best food probably ever served at a school, he found a seat near Kitty, Rouge, and Bobby.

"Can I—"

"Of course," Kitty said, patting the seat beside her. "I want to hear everything about your first day, and I mean everything."

"It's basically like regular school," Matt said. "Except the rooms. It's weird not having blaring white lights and tiled floors."

Bobby chuckled. "You'll get used to it."

"You know what I can get used to?" Matt asked. "This food." He held up his fork with a piece of chicken on it. "I think that this might even be real meat." At least that was a benefit of private school.

"Yeah, we have to kill the chickens ourselves. There's a huge chicken coop out back," Bobby joked.

"Well, of course you do," Matt joked back. "You have to freeze the chicken for storage. Does John do all the cooking around here?"

"Thankfully, no," Rouge said.

"Did I hear my name?" John said, coming and sitting down across from Matt.

"Yeah, we were discussing that time you destroyed a grilled cheese sandwich," Bobby said.

"It wasn't that bad!" John exclaimed defensively.

"It was literally ash," Kitty said.

"You are just a bunch of haters," John declared.

Matt snorted and rolled his eyes. It was strange; he had expected all of the kids here to be obsessed with their powers and for that to be all that was important. However, powers were treated as just something else they could do, and his morning classes had literally been what he was taught in public school.

They talked about terrible food and cooking abilities for the rest of lunch until it was time for Matt to go to English. In English, they did a grammar sentence—he couldn't believe he still had to label prepositions in his senior year—and then continued reading Macbeth. There was a heated discussion on whether Macbeth or Lady Macbeth was more to blame for their plans. They were only starting Act III, so Matt's homework was to read the first two acts.

Then, he had physics, which was also taught by Professor Xavier. It was a class that Matt had only taken a month of at his regular school before he ran away. After getting his powers, he had purposely asked to get into physics second semester in order to understand his powers better—or at least how he could better apply them since they technically broke pretty much all of the laws of physics.

The professor told him to get a text-book out of the closet in the back of the room. Matt got the book and sat beside Jubilee and behind Rouge.

Matt knew that he would have to study a lot if he had any chance of catching up with the class. They were in the middle of a lesson over momentum and collisions. Matt followed the best he could, but he had to ask Rouge how to use one of the formulas.

At the end of class, Professor X called him up to his desk. "Mr. Garetty, I understand that you have not been a part of this class for all of the year, so if you need tutoring, just ask. I'm sure that any of these students would be happy to help you catch up."

"How do you know my last name?" Matt accused.

"You have to understand, Matt, that while you were unconscious, we needed to know who you were and where you were from," the Professor said calmly.

"And what did you find? Did you contact my parents?" Matt said worriedly.

"I didn't dig through your whole life, but yes, I did call your mother. She was very worried about you. Maybe you should consider telling you that you're okay. It would be more consoling to hear it from you instead of a stranger."

Matt stared at the professor for a long moment before turning his back and walking away.

His last class of the day was Abilities, which he considered skipping. It was technically labeled "Advanced Abilities" on his sheet, but he wasn't sure if that meant he had advanced abilities or he was advanced in the use of them. It could just be because he was an older student.

But Matt decided that maybe using his powers—as he assumed was the purpose of the class from its name—would help him went off some steam. He saw Professor Xavier's point of view, but he couldn't call his mother because he knew she would convince him to come home. Then the questions would come: Why had he left? Why had he been gone so long? Why hadn't he called? What did he know about what happened to Andrew? Questions he wasn't ready to answer.

When he entered the class, it was full of about a dozen older teens, he guessed all at least sixteen. Kitty, Rogue, Bobby, and John were in there, along with a few faces he recognized from his other classes. When he entered, they all turned towards him with surprised looks. "You're in here?" Kitty asked. She didn't ask it rudely, just with surprise.

"That's what my schedule says," Matt replied. _Though I wouldn't have a problem with a scheduling mistake, _he thought. _Maybe a free class…?_

His hopes were shot down when a familiar redhead entered the room behind him. "Oh, hi Mr. Garetty," Jean said, noticing him. "Sit wherever. You won't need a textbook or a binder for this class, but I would suggest taking notes anyways." Matt nodded and started to go to his seat, but she put a hand on his shoulder to stop him. "Many of you have probably already met Matt, but since he is new, we need an introduction."

Everyone turned to look at him expectantly. "Um, my name is Matt, and I like—" he started, feeling like a stupid first grader.

Miss Grey shook her head. "No, that's not what I meant. Show them what you can do."

"Oh," Matt said. He looked around the room for something to lift. He settled on an empty desk, which he lifted into the air, sticking his arm out for dramatic effect. The class wasn't super impressed, but he remembered that telekinesis was also Jean's power, so they had probably already seen it before. He set the desk back down and went to sit in another empty desk than the one he had lifted.

"Okay, now, this week we'll start with the power of telekinesis," Miss Grey said, starting the class. "We were going to do it next week, but since Matt has arrived we'll start on it. Matt, what is telekinesis?"

"The power to move stuff without touching it," he answered. He remembered how Steve had looked up the technical definition soon after they had discovered their powers, but he had given the gist.

Jean nodded. "Yes, that is essentially what it is. Are there any other things it can do?" she asked Matt rhetorically, obviously expecting him to help her lead the conversation.

Matt thought on it for a moment. "You can also throw stuff and stop it from falling. It's kinda like you have a force field that you use to hold stuff," Matt started, not really sure how to explain it. "Well, you could probably explain it better than me, ma'am, since you've probably had your powers a bit longer than I have." He gave her a charming smile.

"How long have you had your powers?" she asked him.

Matt saw no reason to lie. "About…seven months at this point, I think."

Rouge asked, "Miss Grey, how come Cerebro didn't find him sooner than that?"

"What's Cerebro?" Matt and a few other kids in class asked.

The question was ignored. "Because sometimes we just don't pick up on mutants in time, or we're looking in the wrong places," Jean said. "Anyways, no, telekinesis is not a force field, but it can be used as if it were one in order to block incoming objects," she continued with the lesson.

"Can it stop bullets?" John asked a bit too enthusiastically.

"Why don't you shoot me and we'll find out?" Matt asked him with a smirk. He knew that he could do it since he and Andrew had both gotten shot at numerous times that night. However, one of those bullets had him in the hand, reminding him that he wasn't invincible. It really came down to concentration; the only reason he had been able to stab Andrew with the spear was because his cousin had been caught off guard.

"Boys, seriously?" Jean said.

"It was a legitimate question out of curiosity," John said. "We always learn both the strengths and weaknesses of powers."

Jean sighed. "There will be no shooting of any students or using guns on school property. And no, you can't go into town and shoot at people."

John started to make a comment but then shut his mouth.

For the rest of the class Jean just discussed some of the powers and limitations of telekinesis. Thankfully, he wasn't asked to do any more demonstrations, though Jean performed a few. When class finally ended, Jean called Matt up to her desk to tell him that class was held outside on Tuesdays and Thursdays.

"Why?" he asked.

"In order to actually practice with your powers," she replied. "Don't worry, we won't throw any more cars at you."

"You watched that?" he asked in surprise.

The other telekinetic nodded. "Yes, and I must say I'm impressed with the control you already have over your powers in what little time you've had them."

Matt forced a smile at the compliment. "Well, I've been practicing basically since I got them."

She nodded, giving him a strange look. "Actually, though, we have a field trip tomorrow, but I was just telling you that so you were prepared on Thursday."

"To where? Please don't tell me I need a permission slip." Matt wasn't sure if he was super lucky or unlucky to have a field trip so early on at his new school.

"The museum of natural history. And no, you don't, since you are eighteen."

"Okay, good," Matt said, relieved.

Jean continued, "You'll need to be out front at seven A.M. to get on the bus, but eat breakfast beforehand. Other than that, I'm sure you know the rules."

Matt nodded. "Um, thanks for informing me," he said before leaving the classroom.


	9. Chapter 9

**Here is where the plot starts converging more with the events of X2.**

The next morning, Bobby woke Matt up at six. "Five more minutes," he groaned.

"Dude, we have a stupid fieldtrip in an hour," Bobby said. "It's not my fault you sleep through the alarm clock. What time did you go to sleep?"

Matt thought for a moment as he pulled himself out of bed. "Around one, I think. I had to catch up on Macbeth and the trig wheel and Watergate, and just too much," he said with a huge yawn. He quickly got dressed before going down with Bobby to the kitchen. Matt noticed that he wasn't the only half-asleep person stumbling down for breakfast.

He poured himself a bowl of cereal before sitting down with Bobby, John, and Rogue. Even this early in the morning, she was wearing her gloves.

"Dude, you look like shit," John said.

He smiled sourly. "Sorry," he said sarcastically, "I forgot to get my beauty sleep, and I ran out of makeup."

"I can tell," John said with a smirk. Matt rolled his eyes and finished eating.

At 6:55, they all went out to the bus. Matt ended up sitting by John, to his dismay, because Bobby and Rogue insisted on sitting together and Kitty was sitting at the front with some of her other friends. "How long have they been dating?" he asked John, nodding his head towards Bobby and Rogue's seat.

"If you ask them, they aren't, but really for only about a month," John said. "Their moping about it is annoying."

"What do you mean?"

John glanced towards the couple. "Rogue would kill me if I told you, so ask her. And no, she's not pregnant."

That hadn't been what Matt had been about to ask, but he just shrugged and turned to the window. Matt didn't talk most of the bus ride, but John just turned in the seat to talk to the people across the aisle.

When they arrived at the museum, the teachers did a head count and led them into the museum. They were led through many exhibits of dinosaurs and then mammoths and then Neanderthals. The talk about evolution was boring Matt, and he could tell it was boring the others.

"Let's go get some food," John finally suggested, in a whisper so that Ms. Munroe couldn't hear him.

Matt agreed, even though it wasn't the school's scheduled lunch time yet.

Matt, John, Bobby, and Rogue headed to the food court—which was plenty full of other people eating—and they each ordered a thing of cheesy fries.

"Can you please stop that?" Matt asked John, who kept playing with his lighter.

"What, I like fire," he said, flicking it in Matt's face.

"Yeah, but no one else will when you catch the whole building on fire. Why do you even have that?" Matt asked. "Can't you just make your own?"

John scowled. "No. I can control and expand it, but I can't create it. For that, I need a spark." To make a point, he flicked the lighter open yet again.

"Hey, can you light this?" a guy said, coming up to the table and holding out a cigarette.

"Aren't you a little young to smoke?" John said, eyeing the guy and his friend.

"That's none of your business. Now, will you be polite and help me?"

John seemed to think for a long minute, turning the lighter on and off the whole time. "Nope," he finally said. "Sorry, can't do it."

"No need to be an ass," the guy said angrily.

A smirk crossed John's face. "Just ignore him," Rogue said to him.

"But he asked for a favor." John reached out and lit the guy's cigarette while Matt held his breath. He let out a sigh of relief as the guy sarcastically thanked John and started to turn and leave. But the end of the guy's cigarette flared up and caught his shirt on fire. Matt jumped up to flee as the whole cafeteria turned towards the screaming guy rolling around with his shirt on fire. _You are such an idiot, John, _he thought.

Bobby also jumped up and held an arm out, freezing the jerk's shirt and putting the fire out. There was a collective gasp heard around the room, and Matt prepared for a fight.

However, everyone in the room suddenly stopped except for him and his friends. "What the hell?" he said, looking around the room. "Did you do this?" he asked Bobby.

Bobby, who looked just as confused as Matt felt, shook his head. "No, I didn't."

"That's because I did," Professor X said, rolling into the room.

"How?" Matt asked. "I didn't know freezing time was one of your powers."

"It's not," the professor explained. "I simply froze their consciousnesses: time is moving, just not for the humans in this room."

"That's creepy," Matt mumbled.

Professor Xavier ignored that comment and said, "Now, what was going on here?"

"John thought some pyrotechnics would be fun," Matt said.

"He deserved it," John said.

"That is not what matters: what matters is that you used your powers to potentially harm an innocent human," Professor Xavier said.

Before John could reply, the news on the TV in the cafeteria—which wasn't frozen since it doesn't have a human consciousness—started a breaking story.

"This is breaking news, coming to you live from Washington D.C." the announcer said after the news tone finished. "There has been an attack on the president's life. The president is okay, but the perpetrator, who is believed to be a mutant, is still at large."

"I think that's our cue to leave," Ms. Munroe said.

The professor nodded, and the teachers rounded all of the students out of the museum and onto the bus.

"All in all," John said to Matt as they sat down on the bus, "I think that was a productive field trip."

They didn't have to go to their afternoon classes since they were supposed to have been at the museum all day. Therefore Matt found himself sitting with Bobby, Rogue, and John as he tried to finish Act II of Macbeth. He just had trouble wrapping his head around the Shakespearean language. They, along with a lot of other students, were hanging out in a sort of common room that had obviously once been the mansion's living room.

Discussion about the attempted assassination could be heard around the room, but Matt mostly blocked them out.

"I think that the mutant was just showing the president how powerful we can be," John said.

"I don't think scare tactics are a good idea," Matt said, looking up from the book. "That will just start a manhunt and mutant hate." He pointedly pointed at the TV, which was showing footage of surprisingly quickly planned anti-mutant rallies.

"Still, they need to be scared of us."

"John, he has a point," Bobby said. "Starting a war will solve nothing."

"Whatever. I'm going to go plan my future inaugural speech," John said sarcastically as he stood up and left.

"Bye! Have fun!" Rouge said jokingly. Then, forgetting about anyone else, she turned and started whispering to Bobby and giggling.

"I could go up to the room if you want to make out that badly," Matt finally said, starting to stand up. "Or you two could, either way is fine with me."

"No, it's fine," Rogue said, her voice laced with disappointment and maybe even regret.

Matt raised an eyebrow, but before he could comment, they heard the main doors of the mansion open.

Rogue jumped up excitedly and said, "That must be Logan!" She ran into the entry hall, dragging Bobby with her.

"Who's Logan?" Matt wondered aloud. He followed them curiously to find Rogue hugging a buff middle-aged man. Logan had his brown hair styled weirdly on top of his head into something like small horns and he had sideburns.

Logan released Rogue and greeted her before turning to Bobby. "Who is this?" he asked.

Matt rolled his eyes. This Logan was obviously some sort of father figure to Rogue, and he didn't want to be there for the questioning-the-boyfriend ceremony. He headed back up to his room to finish reading before supper.


	10. Chapter 10

**I'm going ahead and posting this chapter-almost 2000 words!-because I won't be able to update in the next few days. I'm leaving for vacation tomorrow, so I will be either in the car or doing stuff with family. I promise I will still update, it just might take a week or so.**

_"__You're a freak Matt!" Casey yelled, backing away from him. _

_"__I'm sorry, but what was I supposed to tell you?" he pleaded._

_"__The truth!" she exclaimed, throwing a book at him._

_He didn't even try to deflect the book and simply let it hit him in the head. He deserved everything she threw at him. She started to walk through the door. "Casey, please," he begged._

_When she turned back to him, her eyes were an all too familiar shade of whitish red. "You couldn't save your friend and you stabbed your cousin through the back," the voice was no longer Casey's, and it was void of emotion. "You don't appear to be worthy." _

_"__I didn't ask for this."_

_"__Yet you have it. So use it!"_

Not for the first time that week, Matt woke up abruptly and drenched in sweat. There was a thump as furniture in the room fell to the floor with a thump. That, however, was new, and a bit worrisome. Like most of his dreams lately, this one slipped away from Matt's memory, leaving only a sense of foreboding and a slight headache.

Maybe they would have some aspirin downstairs. Matt got out of bed, trying to be quiet, only to realize that his roommate wasn't even in the room. He realized guiltily that he had probably woken Bobby up.

The mansion was eerily silent as he made his way to the kitchen, except for a kid watching TV.

He went to the kitchen only to see Bobby sitting there eating ice cream and talking to that Logan guy, who was drinking a bottle of coke.

"Hey, sorry for not waking you up," Bobby said as he saw him.

"Sorry for waking you up," Matt replied. "Is there any aspirin in here? My head is killing me."

"The top cabinet over the fridge. They don't want kids getting into it, you know."

Matt thanked Bobby and took two pills.

"So, what do you teach?" Matt asked Logan as he sat down at the table. He didn't think he was getting back to sleep anytime soon, so he might as well talk to someone.

"I don't," Logan said gruffly.

"Then what are you doing here?"

"Aren't you being a little rude?" Bobby interrupted Matt.

"Sorry," Matt said. "I'm just curious. Then, how do you know Rogue?"

"It's a long story," Logan replied, not sounding like he wanted to tell the story right then. "I haven't seen you around here before," he changed to interrogating Matt instead of the other way around.

"That would be because I'm new. Are you a new student?" he asked innocently.

Logan seemed to be looking far off into space and he shushed them.

"What?" Matt asked.

Logan glared at him before pushing the two teens into the floor behind the table. Suddenly, two men in SWAT team-type uniforms holding guns entered the room. One shot Logan with what Matt hoped was only a tranquilizer dart. Out of each of Logan's hand leapt three long metal claws.

"Holy shit!" Matt exclaimed in surprise.

One of the attackers turned towards Matt and Bobby and made as if to shoot them. Matt flung the gun out of his hand and Logan impaled the guy on the fridge with his claws. Matt flung the other guy into the wall, and Logan hit him over the head.

"You two all right?" he asked and he pulled the tranq out of his neck and then wiped the blood off of his claws as if it was something he did every day.

Matt nodded slowly as Bobby stared at the probably dead guy slumped against the fridge.

"Come on, we have to go," Logan said. Matt turned towards the window, but it was suddenly filled with light as helicopters flew down, effectively surrounding the building.

_Just my luck, _Matt thought. _Having my new school be attacked within a week of my arrival._

"Come on, this way," Bobby said, grabbing his arm. Matt followed Bobby and Logan out into the hall where there were more armored men. Logan went straight into action, stabbing and slicing at them. Matt also took out a couple by throwing them at the walls to knock them out.

When the hallway was clear, they noticed a kid lying in the floor and not moving. "He's not…" Matt started, unable to finish his sentence. What kind of monsters would invade a school and shoot at children?

Logan checked the kid's pulse before throwing him over his shoulder. "He's fine, just unconscious. Now, let's move out," he ordered. _This guy must be from the military,_ Matt decided from the way Logan kept a level head in this and seemed to have no problem impaling the intruders.

Screams could be heard everywhere as Matt and Bobby followed him through the halls. "Who would attack children?" Matt asked. "Shouldn't we be fighting them?" He knew that this wasn't his fight, but he couldn't let these military guys just do whatever they were going to do with the other students—from the tactics being used, it was obviously nothing good.

"No, we should be getting as many kids out of here safely as we can," Logan said gruffly.

"Rogue!" Bobby suddenly exclaimed. He turned around and started running towards her room.

"Follow him," Logan ordered Matt. "I'll take care of this kid."

Matt nodded and without haste took off after Bobby. He swiftly took down the few armed men he found in the hallway. One had been dragging a conscious and still fighting kid, who he told to run back until she found Logan. The little girl had smiled and thanked him before doing just that.

He found Bobby hugging Rogue in the middle of the hallway.

"Okay, good, you two are safe," he said. "Should we go back and help Logan?"

The couple broke off their hug. Bobby nodded and the trio took off back that way.

They ran into John a minute later. "Hey, how's it going?" he asked nonchalantly.

They all ignored his comment as they saw Logan coming towards them. "That way's blocked, but we got a lot of kids through the exit first," he said before any of them could ask.

"I know another way," Bobby said before leading them in another direction. Matt heard footsteps behind them as Bobby hit a panel on the wall that opened to reveal a passageway. _Secret passageway, that's new, _Matt thought, _but also probably the least surprising thing that I've seen all day._ They all rushed into the passage and only realized after running down it a few yards that Logan wasn't with them.

"What the heck is he doing?" Matt asked, stopping and looking back.

They four teens turned around and looked out to see Logan talking to a guy that was obviously the leader of the armed men since he wasn't wearing a visor but was surrounded by armed men. Well, actually, the guy was doing more talking than Logan, who was just standing there with an odd look on his face.

"Come on, Logan!" Rogue hissed, pleading.

"Go ahead, I'll be fine," he said.

"But we won't," she said.

Bobby stuck his hand to the wall and a wall of ice started forming between Logan and the men. The hand of the man in charge touched the wall and Logan touched it back, reminding Matt of romance movies. Matt was about to go and drag the man away, scary metal claws or not. But Logan finally turned and followed them, and Bobby hit a part of the wall that moved the panel back into place.

The passage turned out to end up in a large garage with a bunch of fancy cars.

"I'm driving," John said.

"No you're not," Logan told him as he got into a sports car. Rogue took the passenger seat, leaving the three teenage boys to cram into the back.

"Isn't this Scott's car?" Bobby asked.

Logan made only one of his freaky claws come out, which he stuck in the ignition to start the car.

They drove out of there in awkward silence for a few miles until they could no longer see the helicopters in the sky. "Who's your boyfriend?" Matt finally asked.

"What?" Logan said, not taking his eyes off of the road.

"The crazy guy with the stubble that you had a moment with. You know—the one that ordered the kidnapping of children. Don't lie, you obviously knew him."

"His name is Stryker," he answered tensely.

"Aw, nice name," John said sarcastically. "It fits."

"Does this sort of thing happen often?" Matt asked. "I have to admit, I've never been shot at at school before." No one answered him. "Do you at least have an idea of where we are going?"

"Jean and Storm went to Boston," Logan said.

"Who's Storm? What kind of name is that? And what's in Boston?" The last time he had been in Boston, a bridge had collapsed. He didn't regret saving the people, but he wished that he could have kept consciousness long enough to escape and not be found by the mutants.

"They went to bring in the mutant that attacked the president," Logan answered, ignoring his first two questions.

"Oh," Matt said.

There was a moment of silence before Bobby spoke up. "My parents live in Boston."

Logan simply nodded.

Matt wanted to fall asleep in order to not have to suffer through this car ride, but after the attack he was wide awake. At least he had gotten a window seat, unlike poor John. So he rested his head against the window, looking out at the passing countryside.

Maybe he should just open the door and fly away, go back to living on the run. That was basically what was happening now. He had thought that he had finally found a place he could stay for a while and men with freaking guns had attacked it. Maybe that was a sign that he'd never be normal or find a normal place. His companions in the car sure weren't normal: one had claws and knew how to use them, one could control fire, one could control ice, and the other, well, he wasn't sure what Rogue did, but it must be something bad if she wore gloves all of the time. She could probably kill people with a touch or something. Or maybe she just had freaky claws, except they were on her fingers unlike Logan's.

Any way he looked at it, Matt had been dragged into something bigger than just him, and he didn't think he wanted to stick around for it.

"What are you doing?" he asked John, who suddenly stood up in the seat and leaned towards the front.

"I can't stand awkward silences," the pyromaniac answered as he turned on the radio. "Bye Bye Bye" by NSync came on, and everyone in the car cringed. John started hitting random buttons, and the music turned off. However, a compartment opened and a metal object came out. "I didn't touch that," John declared, quickly sitting back down.

Logan reached for the object which opened into the shape and size of a cell phone. "What the hell is this?" the man wondered.

"Some sort of super secret Justice League communicator?" Matt joked.

Logan held it up to his ear as if it was a phone and talked into it, but it didn't do anything. "Whatever it is, it isn't working," he declared.

Bobby and Rogue started talking with John interjecting with stupid comments. Matt sighed and returned to staring out the window and ignoring them until dawn broke.


	11. Chapter 11

**I'm so so sorry this wasn't updated sooner, but I have been either in the car or dealing with family all week. Next chapter ****_shouldn't _****take as long. As always, thanks to anyone who favs, follows, reviews, and/or reads! I love you all so much. **

Everything about Bobby's house was surprisingly ordinary after all that had just happened. Well, there wasn't any reason for it to be different since Bobby's parents were normal and didn't even know their son was a mutant, but still, it was weird being back in a normal house.

"Here are some clothes," Bobby said, setting a plain shirt and pair of jeans on the coffee table by Matt, who was still in the sweatpants he had slept in.

Matt smiled and said, "Thanks. I really need to stop borrowing your clothes, don't I?"

Bobby shrugged. "It's fine. We really didn't have time to grab a change of clothes." He then turned and left, probably to get everyone else some clothes. Matt went into the bathroom and changed, also taking the opportunity to run some cold water over his face.

He then took to pacing the living room—he couldn't bear to sit any longer after being cramped in the car for so long—wondering what they were going to do next. They obviously couldn't go back to the school, which was compromised, but Matt didn't have anywhere else to go. Would the men who attacked the school follow them? What had they wanted? What was with Logan and that Stryker guy?

Wondering about those questions wasn't getting him anywhere, yet he realized that he was hungry. Matt wandered to the kitchen, but as he was going through the entry hall, three people walked in. He assumed that they were Bobby's mother, father, and brother. Matt jumped a bit but managed to restrain himself and not use his powers on them. He didn't want to be the jerk that threw his friend's family through a window.

"Who are you?" Bobby's mom accused.

"I'm Bobby's friend, from school," Matt said.

"And what are you doing here?" Mr. Drake questioned.

Thankfully, Bobby then came down the stairs, followed by Rogue. "Oh, mom, hi," Bobby said, seeing his family. His mom looked questioningly at him. "Um, I guess I have a lot of explaining to do."

And that's how Matt found himself in probably the most awkward family meeting ever. He could tell that Bobby's parents were trying not to freak out, but they totally were. _It could be worse, _he thought sarcastically, _at least your son hasn't knocked someone up or killed anybody. _

"Have you tried, not being a mutant?" Bobby's mom asked hopefully. _I'm no expert, but I'm pretty sure it doesn't work like that._

Suddenly, Bobby's brother, Ronnie or something like that—probably short for Ronald, Matt guessed, so the parents went with the same letter trend with Robert and Ronald—stood up and stalked off upstairs. Matt wondered what that was about, but realized it could be many things: annoyance, anger, fear, or even jealousy. Matt thought about following him in order to get out of the tension in the living room, but he didn't want to deal with a moody teenager either.

Then, the sound of a phone ringing went through the living room. Logan, after a moment of shock, said, "Oh, that's me, excuse me for a moment." He pulled the weird device from the car out of his pocket and went out on the porch. _So it _is _a communicator. _

After a minute, Logan came back in and said, "We have to get out of here."

"Why?" Rogue said, jumping up.

"What's happening?" Mrs. Drake asked worriedly. "What did you do?" she asked Bobby.

"It was your other son who called the cops," Logan said gruffly, grabbing John and Bobby's arm. Matt and Rogue followed him.

"Why? We aren't doing anything illegal," Rogue said.

They stepped out onto the porch to see the front yard covered in cop cars, with cops pointing guns at them. Logan shot out his claws.

_Well that was quick._ _I swear, if one more person shoots at me, _Matt thought angrily.

"Sir, put the knives down," a cop said front behind the porch swing.

"I can't" Logan said.

"Sir, I will only tell you one time," the cop said shakily.

"I said I can't!" Logan said, taking a step towards the cop. The cop shot him right in the middle of the forehead.

"Holy shit!" Matt yelled, looking down at Logan's body. Panicked, he flung his arm out, sending the cop who had shot flying. "Is he dead?" he asked as Rogue reached down to feel his pulse, not taking her gloves off. Rogue shook her head. "But—"

"Everyone get down!" another cop yelled through a megaphone.

Matt looked at the others, and Bobby nodded. He slowly laid down on the porch, putting his hands only loosely behind his head. Bobby and Rogue did the same, but John just stood there holding his lighter.

"John, no," Matt warned, realizing what he was thinking. Throwing a cop off a porch was one thing, but throwing fire at them was another.

"You know those dangerous mutants you always hear about on TV?" John asked loudly with a smirk on his face. "Well I'm the most dangerous one of them all." He flicked the lighter on and made the fire grow before shooting a ball of it at a police car. Matt threw his hand out and tried to stop it, but he couldn't control the fire. He remembered a lesson from science class that fire wasn't an object, but a reaction that released energy. The car flipped in a glorious explosion, the fire urged on by John's powers.

Matt pulled the nearby cops out of the way, who looked around in confusion to see themselves suddenly yards from their car, which was now on fire. "John, stop!" he yelled.

John ignored him and threw two more fireballs. Matt again could only move the men out of the way of the blast.

What was John thinking? Every cop car has a camera, so they were totally being exposed. But then again, he definitely seemed the theatrical type that liked to make a scene. Still, it couldn't go on like this—someone could seriously get hurt.

He hated to do it, but he had to stop John. He used his powers to take the lighter from John, who turned to him angrily. "I told you to stop," Matt said, standing up. John made as if to hit Matt, but he simply stopped the punch in mid-air before pushing John back with his powers. "Put the fires out," he ordered angrily.

John snorted and started to lunge at him, but suddenly Rogue's ungloved hand was on his arm. John turned really pale as Rogue turned towards the yard, her face tight in concentration. She held a hand out and the fires started dying down. _So that's her power, _Matt realized. _She steals other's powers. _

Suddenly, Logan stood up, with only a small line of blood on his forehead as a sign he'd been shot.

"What the heck?" Matt exclaimed. "Aren't you dead?" Logan must have some sort of insanely quick healing power along with the claws. Matt knew that he could heal, but he didn't think he could survive a direct shot to the forehead. _ Maybe he's just hardheaded._

Logan ignored him as an airplane landed in Bobby's front yard. It was the cool military type that had jets underneath it so that it didn't need a runway to land or takeoff.

With the fires now all out, Rogue let go of John's arm. John swayed for a moment, obviously somehow drained from Rogue, before gathering his bearings and standing up. "Lighter," he ordered Matt, holding his hand out.

"What, so you can set more stuff on fire?"

"Just give him the damn thing," Logan said as he started walking towards the plane.

Matt sighed and threw John the lighter. The other three teens were already heading towards the airplane. "Wait, we're riding that?" he asked. "Whose plane even is that?"

"The school's," Logan said. "Now get your butt on it, unless you want to stay here." The other three teens had already boarded. Matt looked back at Ronnie and his parents looking out of the upstairs window, their eyes wide with fear and disbelief. _This is why I never told my family, _he thought, _and I never will. _

Matt turned and headed towards the plane.

**Next chapter sees some new characters, including Magneto!**


	12. Chapter 12

In New York City, two men walked into a penthouse suite. One was middle-aged and wore a business suit. The other man was older and had gray hair. "Nice place you got here," Erik Lehnsherr, more infamously known as Magneto, said as he surveyed the room. "Whose is it?"

The younger man closed and locked the door behind them as his skin and clothes slowly morphed, revealing a naked woman with red hair and blue scaly skin. "The CEO of a video game company," the woman said. "He's been in Japan on business the last month." Raven Darkholme, also known as Mystique, had posed as a security guard outside of the top secret facility in which Magneto had been imprisoned for the last few months. Once Magneto had broken out of the facility—with help from the iron Mystique had snuck into the facility in the guise of another guard—she had led him to a limousine and turned into the guise of a limo driver. From there, they had headed here, to this suite which had been Mystique's base of operations during much of Erik's imprisonment.

They walked into the spacious main room of the suite, which had two plush leather couches, a 60 inch television, large windows all along one wall, and a kitchenette on one side.

However, there was already someone in the suite who was sitting on a couch and eating chips.

"Oh, hi," he said, continuing to eat. "I'm glad you're finally home. Well, I guess this isn't your house, but it's nice all the same. Love the décor. Why are you blue and naked?"

Raven leapt instantly into action, jumping at the intruder and throwing a kick. The intruder simply threw a hand up and stopped Raven in mid-air before pushing her back. She did a flip and landed on her feet.

"How rude," the boy said, shaking his head. "I only wanted to talk. But seriously, I know you're a shapeshifter, so what's with the blue? Can you do yellow?" The intruder was a white teenage boy with brown unruly hair who appeared around seventeen.

She didn't reply to his snide remarks and just scowled at him because Magneto held up a hand telling her to not attack, at least not yet.

"Oh, our little intruder is a mutant, and a snarky one at that," Erik remarked. "How interesting."

"Mutant?" the boy said in confusion. "Oh, right, that's what they call you. My files say that you two are in fact quite powerful mutants."

"Files?" Mystique said, glancing over at the TV.

The boy followed her gaze and used his powers to summon the files that were in the TV stand. "I read these too," he remarked as he set them down on the coffee table and then flipped through them with one hand, still using the other to eat his potato chips, "but the ones I'm talking about are from the secret lair of one William Stryker, you know, the one at a top secret location." He spoke casually but paid close attention to the reaction of the adults in the room.

Erik tensed. "What business do you have with Stryker?" he asked.

"Personally, I would like to kill the son of a bitch. But, alas, even I can't get back into his base alone. I understand that you have had some…meetings…with the monster," he said pointedly, emphasizing the word "meetings."

"Get to the point, boy," Erik said. He needed to actually thwart Stryker instead of standing around talking about him. Mystique had already informed him of Stryker's plans, and they were just here to get the files that were now strewn all over the coffee table. Stryker already had Charles, so their time frame was limited to stop the annihilation of his kind. "I have more important things to do than talk to some random teenager."

At the words 'random teenager' the teenager scowled, obviously offended. "I am not just some random teenager. I am quite powerful, and I came to you because you are too. Now, if you want to let that filthy human who used his creepy ass mind-control serum on you get away, I'll be leaving. But if you want to know where he is hiding, then I think we can help each other very much."

"I'm listening," Magneto said, letting a small smile reach his lips.

The interior of the jet was mostly silver—from being made of metal. There were benches lining each side leading up to six nicer seats and finally, two pilots' seats. In the nicer seats were those he had boarded with and a man he didn't recognize. Ms. Munroe and Miss Grey were in the pilot and co-pilot's seats.

"Is everyone on?" Ms. Munroe said, looking back from the controls.

"Yes," Logan said. "We can take off now, Storm."

"What is that?" Matt asked, stopping and staring at Ms. Munroe, who was wearing a full leather outfit with what looked like a cape.

"That's Kurt, don't be rude," she said, looking at the man Matt didn't recognize. Matt turned his head to see that he had blue skin, yellow eyes, and black hair. When he smiled at Matt his teeth were pointed like fangs. Kurt hadn't been what Matt was asking about, but he definitely was a little freaky looking. He'd ask about and freak out about him later.

Matt smiled awkwardly back at the man but said, "No, I was talking about what you're wearing. Is that a cape?"

"Yes," Ms. Munroe said agitatedly. "Please take a seat so that we can take off now before more cops show up."

Matt followed her orders and sat down on the empty seat, but not without asking, "Is that a costume? Wait, Miss Grey is wearing one too." He glanced around panicked as the plane took off. He had joked about it already, but now it seemed he had been right. "Oh my God, you think you are superheroes!" he exclaimed. It made sense: what regular school had a jet plane or trained kids how to use powers? He remembered seeing all of the suits in the lower level of the school, which were obviously for this.

John chuckled, but no one protested for a minute.

"Nobody said we are superheroes," Ms. Munroe, or apparently "Storm" as her superhero name was, finally said. "But yes, we do sometimes wear uniforms on missions in which having powers like we do is of great benefit."

"Oh, so you're spies?" Matt accused.

"No. We simply use our powers to do good in the world," Jean corrected.

Matt snorted. He couldn't believe it: they were trying to be politically correct in their definition of superheroes. Why did he have to get mixed up in this stuff? He hadn't been shot at in weeks before he joined this "school." "Did you know about this?" he questioned, turning to the other teenagers on the plane.

"Yes," Rogue said timidly as Bobby and John both nodded.

"Why didn't anyone tell me?"

"You've been at school for only a couple of days," Bobby said. "It never really came up. Anyways, not all students even know about it."

Matt scowled but accepted his answer. "Do the other students know about the jet plane? Where do you even keep this thing?"

"No, and it's under the basketball court," Storm said.

"Of course it is," Matt mumbled. "Cause it's not like you have a bat cave to put it in. What do you call your little Justice League?"

"The X-Men," Storm answered seriously.

Matt snorted at the name. "So I'm guessing that the Professor started all of this, then. It's pretty conceited to name the team after yourself."

Storm ignored the rude comment. "He did a lot to form the team, and he has done lots to help further the mutant cause."

"What 'mutant cause'?" Matt wondered in confusion.

"To be accepted," Storm explained. "We want to one day be accepted by humans and to be equals."

Matt had to admit that that sounded pretty good. He wasn't really a mutant, but it would be nice to not have to hide his powers. "That sounds good," he said, "but what does that have to do with wearing costumes and flying around in a jet?"

"Matt, fighting's also a job that needs to be done," Miss Grey explained. "When people have power, some want to do good with it, others want to do bad. Power sometimes corrupts."

"Like that Magneto guy," Matt said. But his thoughts were really on Andrew. Andrew hadn't been a bad person, people had just kept giving him shit and treating him like it. If only Matt had been there more for Andrew, asked about his mom more and pushed more about his dad. He understood why Andrew had wanted to push out once he got the powers, but he couldn't deny that Andrew had taken it way too far. Matt had seen the videos of Andrew pulling the legs off of spiders and spilling nonsense about "apex predators. Oh, how he wished they had never gotten those powers. They had been fun at first and brought him Andrew and Steve together, but they had ended up corrupting Andrew and destroying all of their lives. And now those powers had landed him in a jet full of a superhero team.

He wanted nothing more to do with anyone about powers.

"How'd you know about him?" Logan asked sharply, turning to him.

"Google," Matt answered as he unbuckled his seatbelt and started to stand up.

"Kid, what are you doing?" Logan exclaimed.

"Leaving. I really don't want to be a part of this." Matt started towards the back of the plane.

"Matt, don't," Bobby warned.

"Buckle up!" Storm suddenly yelled. "Two objects incoming, and fast."

"What are they?" Logan asked, running towards the front of the plane. "Fighter jets." He turned to Matt. "Sit your ass back down unless you want to get thrown all over the plane. And don't even think about jumping—they'll just shoot your parachute down." Logan returned to his seat and buckled himself in.

Suddenly, the plane jerked to the left. Matt decided that he wasn't in the mood to dodge bullets—or any missiles they would shoot at him—in the air, so he ran back to his seat and buckled in.

A storm started out of nowhere, with twisters and lightning. Oh, right, _Storm. _This was obviously how she got her name. Storm jerked the plane into a few rolls in order to avoid some shots.

"This is the third time in the last 24 hours I have been shot at," Matt grumbled.

Apparently the weather didn't stop their chasers because they still did crazy evasive maneuvers after the weather cleared up, which it did just as suddenly as it had started.

"Storm!" Jean yelled as she watched the radar screen. "Two missiles are incoming."

Matt closed his eyes and reached out with his powers. He could feel the two missiles flying quickly towards them and two planes farther away. He tried to grab one of the missiles with his powers, but he felt a force already acting on it. "Take the other!" Jean yelled as he felt it start to move away from the plane and towards the pursuing planes. He shifted his focus to the other missile and tried to push it down, but it was already too late. It hit the back of the plane, opening a gaping hole and creating a vacuum.

Rogue screamed as her buckle failed and she was sucked out of the back of the plane.

"Rogue!" Bobby yelled in a panic.

Matt didn't think as he unbuckled his belt and dove out after her. He had to fly down to get her as she was falling. A look of surprise came over her face as she saw him diving after her. Matt grabbed Rogue as if in a hug and flew back towards the plane as fast as he could. As a last moment thought, he took a split second to flick the still following airplane off course. He squeezed them through the hole in the back of the plane and landed on his back inside the plane with Rogue on top of him.

"Rogue!" Bobby exclaimed excitedly. "You can fly!?" he yelled at Matt over the sound of the wind whipping out of the plane.

"We all have secrets!" he yelled back.

Matt used his powers to push Rogue up and towards her seat, which she grabbed with Bobby's help and quickly buckled in. Matt then picked himself up and flew to his seat before returning his attention back to the hole.

To his surprise, the metal body of the jet was already mending itself.

"Are you doing that, Miss Grey!?" he yelled to the front of the plane.

"No! Aren't you?" The redhead yelled back.

Matt shook his head as the plane started stabilizing itself and losing altitude less rapidly. "Then who is controlling the plane!?" He felt a buzzing in his head and felt a trickle come from his nose. "No," he whispered in horror as he wiped the blood from his lip.

The plane continued to fly powered by an outside source—Matt knew he wasn't controlling it, Jean said she wasn't, and Storm was trying to use the controls, which weren't working—until it suddenly stopped, hovering in midair.

Matt looked out the front window to see a man wearing a cape and a helmet that he recognized as those belonging to Magneto. Beside Magneto were a blue lady with red hair and—"Oh my God, Andrew!"

**New chapter already? You're welcome.**

**Yes, I brought in Andrew, and yes, he was the kid in the suite. How is he alive? Why does he want to get Stryker? How will his reunion with Matt go? All of these questions will be answered eventually. **

**As always, thanks to everyone who reads this story!**


	13. Chapter 13

"What?" Bobby said, turning to him. "Who's Andrew? What's he doing with Magneto? Haven't I seen him before?"

"He's dead," Matt muttered to himself in shock, completely ignoring his friend. There was a jolt as the plane gently touched the ground. Matt fumbled with his seatbelt, his hands shaking. "He's dead, he's dead, he's dead." Matt wasn't sure if he was reassuring himself or trying to convince himself of the fact.

Yet, as the ramp for the jet opened and Magneto walked on with his two companions, he was sure of it. Though his cousin was slightly taller and had shorter hair than a few months ago, it was definitely Andrew. Matt launched himself out of the chair, not sure of his intentions until he wrapped Andrew in a hug. His cousin stiffened before looking up—Matt was still taller—at who had a hold of him. Matt was vaguely aware of everyone else watching, but he didn't have it in him to care right now.

"Matt?" Andrew said cautiously, pushing him back with his arms, not his powers. "What the hell are you doing here?" he asked coldly but without anger.

"How…?" Matt asked, not able to form the whole question.

"I hate to break up this lovely reunion," Magneto cut in, "but we are here for a reason named William Stryker." Logan scowled at the name.

"The guy who attacked our school?" John asked.

"Yes, him," Mystique said.

"Why do you care?" Bobby asked.

"Because he serves against the interest of mutant kind," Magneto said. "So I believe we have a common enemy for now."

Andrew pulled away from Matt and went to stand behind Magneto and Mystique, leaving Matt to stare after him in confusion. Was his cousin mad to see him? Happy? Annoyed? Was he going to try and get revenge for what happened in Seattle? How had he survived?

They all exited the plane, Matt purposely avoiding the other mutants from the school. The adults made all of the teens stay put while they went and discussed their plans against Stryker. Kurt hadn't been included in that group—probably because he had tried to kill the president but they said he was a teleporter who had been controlled by some serum that Stryker had—but he was now eavesdropping on them anyways.

"Thanks for saving me back there," Rogue told Matt as they—they being Matt, Bobby Rogue, John, and Andrew—sat away from the adults on some logs. Matt felt stupid for being forced to sit at the "kid's table" at eighteen. But why would they trust him? He had tried to bail on them and knew one of the enemies.

Matt smiled shyly. "You're welcome."

"Have you always been able to fly?" Bobby asked, a bit of annoyance in his voice. "Why didn't you tell us?"

"Almost as long as I have had telekinesis," Matt answered. "And it never came up."_ I wanted to have an escape plan, a secret weapon, _was what he left unsaid. "It's not like you told me what Rogue's power is or about your super secret superhero squad."

Bobby had to sigh and agree with that point.

"So, what can you do?" John suddenly asked Andrew.

"What?" Andrew said, not understanding the question. He had been ignoring most of the conversation anyways.

"Your power," John clarified.

"Why would I tell you that?"

"Because Magneto already knows most of our powers, except maybe Matt's, so it's only fair," Rogue reasoned.

Andrew scowled at her and looked like he refused to answer, so Matt interrupted. "He can do the same things as me."

Andrew snorted. "No, I can do more than you."

"Wait, you two have the same powers?" Bobby asked.

"Yeah, but I'm more powerful," Andrew insisted.

"Is that weird?" Matt asked a bit worriedly. "'Cause I mean, we are related, and aren't powers genetic?"

Andrew opened his mouth as if to insist otherwise, but Matt silenced him with a look. The understanding passed between them about not telling the truth of their power's source. Of course genetics didn't really matter in their case, but since Steve wasn't around it was a good enough explanation.

"Wait, you two are related?" Rogue asked in surprise. "You didn't tell us you had a brother!"

"We're cousins," Matt explained.

"Very distantly," Andrew muttered.

"First cousins," Matt clarified.

"So, can you fly too, then?" Rogue asked Andrew.

"Of course," Andrew said as if it was obvious. He explained, "It's just an extension of telekinesis. Instead of lifting other stuff, I just lift myself."

"I don't think it's that simple, but basically that's how it works," Matt agreed.

"Do you think Jean can fly?" Rogue asked, but it was directed more towards Bobby and John.

"I'm sure she can but just hasn't had a reason to," Bobby guessed. "We could just ask her later."

"Yeah, let's remember to do that," Rogue agreed.

"I know where I recognize you from now," Bobby suddenly said to Andrew, as a realization hit him.

Matt didn't answer or look at him but just braced for what he knew was coming. Andrew didn't say anything either.

"The videos from Seattle a couple of months ago," Bobby said.

"No way!" John said with a little too much excitement. "You destroyed half the city! Holy crap you're powerful."

Matt snorted. Andrew turned sharply towards him. "What, do you want some credit, too? Can you not take always being weaker than me? You obviously finally realized how special we are because you surrounded yourself with others almost like us."

"Wait, so you're the other person in the videos!" John realized, turning to Matt. "But didn't you…?"

Matt stood up and walked off, really not wanting to have this talk. Was he surprised that Andrew was alive? Of course. Happy? Maybe. Probably. But did he want to talk about what he had done? Hell no.

He felt rather than heard Andrew fly up and land behind him. "I'm not mad at you," Andrew said.

"You have a right to be," Matt said, turning to face him. "But I have a right to be mad at you too."

"It's survival of the fittest, Matt," Andrew said. "For wolves, when one kills the alpha, it becomes the alpha. Of course, it was just a one-time win for you since you only had the upper hand in Seattle because you were helped by a bunch of stupid cops. Next time—"

"I don't want there to be a next time," Matt said angrily. "You did terrible things to Steve, to those guys on your street, and almost to your father!"

"They were weak," was all that Andrew said, as if that justified it.

"No one deserves that, Andrew! Yes, your father was a straight up jackass, but just because we have powers doesn't mean we can punish others as we see fit!"

Andrew threw Matt into a tree and flew up to him. "We have these powers for a reason, Matt!" he said angrily. "We're like these mutants now, so no one needs to step on us anymore! _I am not weak_!"

"I never said you were," Matt said quietly, not fighting against Andrew's hold. "But we can't just do whatever we want. Have you ever thought that the reason we could have gotten these powers to _help _and do_ good?"_

Matt didn't know what to expect, but it sure wasn't laughter. "Why are you laughing?"

"Because you haven't changed a bit," Andrew said not angrily. "You always have been the moral compass, always wanting to do what was 'right.'" He released the hold on Matt, who only stopped from falling by flying. "It's sickening, you know?"

"Well, if you don't try to kill more innocent people, then I won't have a problem with using powers," Matt said.

"Stryker's not exactly innocent," Andrew reasoned. "He's actually planning to use a machine to wipe out all the mutants on Earth. While I'm sure we're safe and I hold no love for these mutants, I have personal issues with the man."

"Are you proposing a truce?" Matt asked hopefully.

"If you don't get in my way of getting the son-of-a-bitch, then yeah."

Matt pondered for a moment; he didn't want to let Andrew kill anyone, but if Stryker was really planning genocide, then he needed to be stopped. Anyways, he really didn't want to fight Andrew right after being reunited. He could always step in if things got too bad… "Sure. Truce." He held his hand out to shake, and Andrew took it. "But first, I have one question: how did you survive?"

Andrew snorted. "Seriously, you can't heal yet?"

Matt suddenly felt stupid. "Well yeah, but I didn't think it was that powerful. I've only been shot in the hand and then the thigh once, but not the chest."

"Well, you're a weakling anyways," Andrew said lightheartedly. He paused a moment, as if listening for something. "I think they're done," he stated before flying off.

Matt followed him on foot.

"Did you two kiss and make up?" John teased as they exited the woods.

Matt scowled at him with disgust.

"Oh, right, cousins," John remembered. "My bad."

**And there was the Andrew and Matt reunion.**

**As always, lots of love to all of my wonderful readers!**

**Next chapter should be Wednesday but no guarantees.**


	14. Chapter 14

**As promised, here is the next chapter on Wednesday (at least in my time zone)**

"When do we get our suits?" Rogue asked, looking at the X-Men suits stored in the jet. They all had the same basic design of black leather with a raised "X" on the chest, but there were slight variations, probably dealing with the wearer's powers and personal preferences. Matt was glad that they at least hadn't gone the brightly colored spandex route in costumes.

"And do we get cool names?" Matt asked jokingly. He knew that their mission was important, but he still couldn't take the superhero thing seriously, even though—or maybe because—the supervillains were right there in the same plane.

They had all loaded up on the X-Jet—as the plane was apparently called—the next morning. Logan, Jean, Storm, and Kurt were all at the front of the plane; Magneto, Mystique, and Andrew were sitting in the back of the plane; and the other teenagers were standing in the middle of the plane where a panel pulled out to reveal the stored costumes.

"I don't care about names, but you aren't getting suits for a few years," Logan said.

"What's your codename?" Matt asked. "Claws? Logan Scissorknuckles? Poky?"

"Wolverine," Logan said gruffly, rolling his eyes at his Matt's comments.

"Weird, but cool sounding," Matt evaluated. He turned to his friends. "So, do you have some picked out?" he asked. "Wait, let me guess; Flamy, Icy, and, um, Absorby? Wait, no, that's terrible, I don't have a guess for you," he said to Rogue. He couldn't think of a name based off of her powers, and he wasn't sure the extent of her powers since no one told him anything about them.

Rogue scowled. "I just go by Rogue."

Matt nodded. It was as good a name as he could come up with off the top of his head. There might actually be an advantage there with her name not giving away her powers.

"It's Pyro," John said in annoyance, "as in fire."

"Flamy had to do with fire too," Matt pointed out.

"I've been thinking of Iceman," Bobby said.

"That's pretty cheesy."

"Then you come up with a better one," Bobby challenged, taking offense.

"Cryo? Icy? Coldshot?" Matt suggested.

"Those are cheesy too," Bobby decided. "I'll stick with what I picked. What about you, Matt?"

"I told you what you should use."

Bobby shook his head. "No, what do _you _want to be called."

Matt gaped, shocked and confused that they'd turned the conversation back on him. Okay, maybe he, Andrew, and Steve had discussed superhero names back when they'd first gotten their powers, but only jokingly and ironically. They'd never even come up with anything good. "Um, I'm not joining your little team. I'm just sticking around to deal with this Stryker guy and then finishing out high school."

"You're avoiding the question."

"I don't _need _one, though. Anyways, ice and fire are way easier to make names for. What would you suggest, something like Kinetical?"

Rogue laughed. "That is the worst one I've ever heard. You could base your name on your flight power, too," she suggested. She thought for a moment. "Aerial or something like that."

"Sounds too much like a mermaid," John objected.

Matt nodded in agreement. "A definite no on that one." He turned to the back of the plane. "Hey Andrew!"

His cousin, who had been staring intently at the walls of the plane and looking extremely bored, looked over at him in annoyance. Magneto and Mystique—Matt was almost over the fact she was blue since Kurt was blue too and it was obviously another form of mutation, but it was still weird and kinda distracting that she was naked—looked over too, obviously wanting to watch the discussion.

"What's your name?" Matt asked.

"You know my name," Andrew said dryly.

"No, your superpower name. Apparently it's a rule to have one."

"That's stupid."

"I know but come on," Matt begged. As long as his name didn't suck as much as Andrew's, he could actually handle one.

They all looked expectantly at Andrew, who thought for a moment before saying, "Apex."

Matt snorted. "That is so fucking pretentious. Seriously? You're still on that apex predator crap?"

"It's not _crap, _it's a philosophy," Andrew said angrily.

"I know what a philosophy is," Matt insisted, "and that's a messed up one."

"I don't tell you how to live your life!" Andrew yelled, standing up.

Rogue, John, and Bobby backed up a step and Magneto just smiled creepily. Before Matt could yell back, Storm yelled back from the controls, "We're fifteen minutes away. We should discuss our strategy."

"So this Stryker guy is planning on using the professor and Cerebro to kill _all _of the mutants?" Bobby asked unbelievingly as they had their strategy and planning session on the jet before it landed. "Where did he even get the plans for Cerebro?"

"I helped Charles design Cerebro, and Stryker has effective methods for getting information," Magneto said almost apologetically.

"Wait, I still don't understand what this Cerebro is," Matt interrupted. He'd heard mention of it a lot, but no one had explained what is was.

"It's a machine that allows Charles to amplify his powers and telepathically connect to all mutants," Magneto explained. "But if he concentrates on a mutant, he could kill them."

"Why would you build a machine that could do that?" Matt exclaimed.

Magneto answered, "It's actually designed to track down mutants."

"What I still don't understand is how Stryker could force someone as strong as the professor to do this," Logan interrupted.

"As I was trying to say," Magneto said, "Stryker has a serum that allows him to control mutants. It is what he used to question me and probably what he used on Mr. Wagner here." He pointed towards Kurt, who nodded in agreement. "Of course, Charles's mind powers will probably make him impervious to it; however, Stryker probably got the serum from his son, Jason."

"He has a son?" Logan asked in surprise.

"He has the power of illusion generation," Andrew said. "His father, father of the year right here, keeps him in a wheelchair and hooked up to a tube that extracts fluid from his spinal cord. If injected into another person's spinal cord, it can be used to control said person. He'll probably have Jason put this Charles guy in an illusion though instead of using the serum."

Everyone except for Magneto and Mystique looked at him, confused at how he had gotten this information. "I stole and read all of Stryker's files," Andrew explained proudly.

They were about to land, so they returned to actually planning their attack. The blueprints and then looks out of the window showed that they were at a large lake—"Alkali Lake"—formed by a large dam in a remote forest. Apparently the compound was all underground or in the dam.

They ended up having Mystique enter the compound through the spillway while disguised as Logan. She'd fight the guards off and get to the control room, where she could let everyone else in—excluding Matt, Rogue, Bobby, and John.

"But Andrew's only seventeen, so why does he get to go and we don't?" Matt had whined, with some help from John who really wanted to be in on the mission. Andrew just stood there and rolled his eyes while smirking at his cousin.

"Because we're in charge of you, not him," Storm had said. "You're still a student at the school, so as a teacher, I can say that you four have to stay here."

Matt and John had scowled but relented to sitting in the plane like kids while everyone else entered the compound.


	15. Chapter 15

They waited a full fifteen minutes before giving up waiting. "I'm going in," John declared, standing up.

"But we were told to stay here!" Rogue protested, grabbing his arm.

"I can't just sit here like a little kid," he declared. "You can stay here, but I'm going."

"What could you do?"

"Anything, something." John turned to Bobby. "Are you coming?"

Bobby shook his head. "We need to keep the plane safe and have it ready."

John turned to Matt. "I'm giving them a bit longer," Matt said apologetically. He was worried about Andrew, but he really didn't want to get involved unless he had to. _I will not become part of this special ops superhero game._

"I can't believe you guys," John said as he exited the plane.

Matt started pacing the plane as Rogue and Bobby worriedly talked to each other. Matt wondered what the X-Men were doing in the damn. Were they in trouble? Had they defeated Stryker yet? What if Magneto had betrayed them?

Suddenly, Bobby and Rogue cried out in pain, clutching their heads.

"What's wrong!?" Matt exclaimed as he ran to them. They were both curled up in the floor as if in extreme pain. He grabbed Rogue but she pushed him away and kept screaming. Bobby wouldn't let him near either.

Was this what they had meant by killing all the mutants?

Matt turned around and dashed from the plane. Something must be wrong with the mission. But no one they sent in could have helped because they were all mutants. Was Andrew unaffected like he was? Was Andrew helping stop this or had he bailed?

He took off and flew towards the drainage pipe. He flew down it and into the compound. There were a few armed men in there, but he quickly took them out with his telekinesis. He landed and started running because the halls in the compound were too small to easily fly through.

Where was the Cerebro thing? He remembered that they had had and looked at blueprints, but now that he was actually in the compound he wasn't sure where he was supposed to go. He heard screaming and he followed it, knowing that it had to be someone affected by Cerebro.

He turned a corner towards where he heard screaming and found a terrible sight.

"Oh my God, Andrew!"

His cousin ignored him as he smiled sadistically at the man being held against the wall and being choked Darth Vader style.

"Help… me…" the man who must be William Stryker gasped as he saw Matt.

Andrew turned sharply towards him, not releasing his grip on Stryker. "Get the hell out of here, Matt!" he hissed.

"What the hell are you doing!" Matt yelled.

"What I came here for."

"We came here to stop the killing of all mutants, which is happening right now!"

"How are you not affected?" Stryker choked out. "What are you?"

Andrew smiled widely at the man and spoke, "I don't know. Why don't you tell me? You're the scientist that 'studied' me."

Matt gasped. 'Studied?' Was this where Andrew had been these last few months? Ever since they had gotten their powers, Matt had been scared of being found out and experimented on by people wanting powers. From what he'd heard of Stryker, he _was _the type to do that.

"You experimented on my cousin!?" Matt accused.

Andrew released the grip on his victim's throat a bit. Stryker said, "I'm a scientist, but also military, and freaks like you are threats!"

"You are a sick son of a bitch," Matt declared disgustedly. He turned to his cousin. "But we need to get out of here, Andrew. His plans to kill all mutants have already started, so we are the only ones who can stop it."

"You go do the hero thing, I'll stay here and deal with him!" Andrew ordered.

"Damnit, Andrew, I need your help! Okay? Are you happy? I admitted it. You are my cousin and I can't stand to lose you again. But right now, I need your power!"

Andrew stared at him in disbelief before smiling a real, genuine smile. He turned back to Stryker who he dropped on the ground before bending some pipes to hold him. "I'll come back for you," he promised. He started flying past Matt, who followed him.

Andrew apparently knew how to get to Cerebro because he flew straight to the room. They arrived before a large steel door and saw Mystique curled on the ground in pain while gripping her head and screaming.

"Where is everyone else?" Matt wondered. The mutants should have all been here in front of these doors when the machine turned on.

"Who cares," Andrew said. "Let's get these doors open."

Matt nodded, but before he could, the doors opened by themselves and he heard Mystique stop screaming.

He turned to ask Andrew if he had opened them, but his cousin was looking inside. Matt followed his look and saw a large room that was basically the inside of a metal sphere. There was a pathway leading to a platform in the center of the sphere on which the professor was sitting in his wheelchair with a weird helmet on. Behind the professor was a guy in another wheelchair who looked really gaunt and sickly.

But there was also someone walking down the walkway towards them—Magneto.

"Wait, so did you stop it?" Matt asked.

"I saved the mutants," Magneto declared. "Now leave, please." Mystique stood up behind them and walked past Magneto into Cerebro, changing into Stryker.

"Wait, what is she doing?" Matt asked. "If we stopped Cerebro, why did you leave the professor?"

"None of your business," Magneto said. Matt saw Mystique as Stryker lean down to the sick guy in the wheelchair—who who assumed was Jason Stryker—and whisper something in his ear.

Matt started forward. "What the hell is going on?" Mystique, now as herself, walked out of Cerebro and whispered into Magneto's ear. Magneto smiled and turned to the doors of Cerebro, holding his hands out. "What are you doing!?" Matt yelled, running towards the door. "You left them in there!"

"Mystique," Magneto said pointedly.

The blue woman leaped towards Matt and kicked him in the head. Matt yelled as he hit the floor. The doors fully closed behind him.

"Stop!" Andrew exclaimed. "He is just an idiot who doesn't know what he's doing!"

Magneto sighed. "Raven, just knock him out."

"No!" Matt exclaimed trying to throw Mystique away with his telekinesis, but she just bounced off of the wall and flipped over his head before he could react again. Next thing Matt knew, he was in a chokehold and had his arms held behind his back.

He turned to Andrew. "Will he be helpful to us or not?"

Matt struggled in Mystique's hold, but he couldn't use his telekinesis since she had a grip on his hands.

Andrew thought for a moment. "No," he finally said.

"You're going to let them kill me?" Matt accused as he continued to squirm in Mystique's grip; she was really surprisingly strong.

"Of course not," Andrew said seriously. "But trust me, he wouldn't agree with your ideals," he told Magneto.

"Go ahead Raven, but don't kill him," he ordered before turning away from them with a dramatic swoosh of his cape. Andrew looked apologetically at Matt before following.

Matt kept struggling until he felt the pressure on his neck greatly increase and his vision went black as he fell to the floor.


	16. Chapter 16

**So many thanks to everyone who had read and reviewed this story. I love hearing your thoughts and knowing whether you enjoyed reading it as much as I have enjoyed writing it! **

"Matt, Matt, Matt!"

Matt sat up suddenly before rubbing his sore neck. He looked around to see that he was still outside of Cerebro, but he was now surrounded by Storm, who had woke him up; Logan; Jean, who was holding up a man he didn't recognize with weird red glasses; Kurt; and about six kids.

"How did you get in here?" Storm asked calmly.

Matt shook his head and scrambled to his feet, embarrassed that he had just been lying in the floor unconscious. "That's not important. Where is Andrew? And Magneto and Mystique? What about Stryker?"

"We haven't seen the first three," Logan growled. "I knew they would bail on us. But once Cerebro was off, I found Stryker being held up with metal pipes and screaming in pain as if he was being tortured."

"But there was no one around?" Matt clarified.

Logan shook his head.

Matt's face fell in horror. "Oh my God, they didn't…"

"Who didn't what?" Storm asked.

"Magneto, Andrew, and Mystique were all here, and Magneto did something within Cerebro then Mystique told Jason something as his dad before they knocked me out and left with Andrew."

"But where is the professor!?" Jean demanded.

"Still in there," Matt said, pointing at Cerebro. "Mystique must have told him to target someone other than mutants since you are all okay. And since Stryker is like I saw Bobby and Rogue, then the professor must now be targeting humans," Matt deduced.

"WHAT!?" basically everyone else exclaimed in horror.

"What do you mean, how you saw Bobby and Rogue? Weren't you affected too?" Storm questioned.

Matt ignored that question and turned to Jean. "If we use our telekinesis together, we can open it."

Jean quickly shook her head at the idea. "No. The professor is connected to Cerebro and to mess with Cerebro could hurt him badly."

Matt understood her reasoning, but he hated that he couldn't help. He had failed to stop Magneto and if they didn't do something quickly, then saving Stryker would be for nothing.

"Well we can't just leave him in there," Logan growled.

"I agree, but barging in is out of the question," Jean said.

"I have an idea," Ms. Munroe declared. She turned to Kurt with a hopeful look in her eyes.

The blue man shook his head in protest. "I can't teleport where I can't see!"

"I have faith in you Kurt, and you need to have faith in yourself."

He looked apprehensive, but he finally agreed. "Okay, I'll try."

Storm smiled and grabbed Kurt before they both appeared in a cloud of dark smoke.

They all waited in tense silence for a few minutes until Kurt suddenly reappeared with Professor Xavier, who he set down on the ground. Logan rushed to help the professor, who looked a little dazed. Kurt disappeared again and then reappeared with Storm, leaving Jason Stryker in Cerebro.

"Let's get out of here," the weather controller declared.

As one, everybody started heading away from Cerebro, with Storm leading the way and Wolverine carrying the professor, who couldn't really refuse the help, as embarrassing as it was.

"What's that?" Matt asked as he heard a loud crack and felt the air change.

Jean looked at him in horror and declared, "The dam's collapsing!"

Everybody took off running as water started pouring out of cracks that were rapidly forming in the concrete walls.

"The spillway is going to be blocked," Logan realized, and Storm lead them in a different direction and to a different exit.

Scott and Kurt had picked up the smallest children that were having trouble keeping up, and Matt decided to help and grab another one. The little girl smiled at him as she grabbed onto his neck. He didn't have much trouble holding the girl—who appeared to be about twelve but couldn't run fast right now because she was limping, probably because of an injury she got while here or being kidnapped—thanks to his telekinesis.

They exited the compound as water started pouring out.

They were now in a dry clearing, but there wasn't a jet in sight. "I'll go fly and find it," Matt suggested, but thankfully just then the jet came over the trees and landed in front of them. Whoever was driving was doing a terrible job of it, though.

The ramp lowered and Bobby stood there smiling down at them. Everyone got on the plane and Matt helped the little girl into her seatbelt. He could glimpse Rogue at the front of the plane gripping the controls for dear life until Storm took them from her. Matt rolled his eyes at the fact they had decided to drive the plane, but it had sure helped them.

"Where's John?" he asked Bobby as he looked around the plane for the pyrokinetic.

"Didn't you follow him?" Bobby accused angrily.

"No, I left to get help when you and Rogue collapsed," he defended.

"Why weren't you affected?" Bobby asked.

Matt shrugged and turned away as Rogue took a seat in front of Bobby.

At the front of the plane, they were having trouble starting the plane.

Matt suddenly felt a huge release of energy and couldn't help but gasp. "Guys," he said, "the dam just blew!"

Some of the kids started talking fearfully, but Storm kept trying to get the jet started. Scott turned around and asked in a panic, "Where's Jean?"

"She's outside," the professor declared.

"No!" Scott yelled, running to the back of the plane. "Put the lift down! Put it down!"

Suddenly, the professor talked, but his voice was strange as if it wasn't really him talking. _"It's okay, Scott. I know what I'm doing. Please let me do this. It's okay."_

Matt realized that Jean must be using both her and the professor's telepathic powers to communicate through him.

"Wait, I can help!" Matt exclaimed, unbuckling his seatbelt. "I have telekinesis too; I can help stop the water! I can help!" There was no way that one person could hold that much water back for the amount of time they needed to start the plane. They had not just saved all of these kids for them to drown; Matt knew he could fly away with a few people, but not enough.

"Don't you dare!" Logan yelled. "You're just a student!"

Bobby roughly grabbed his arm and exclaimed, "This isn't your responsibility, Matt!"

Suddenly, the switches on the plane started turning on without being touched and the plane started lifting.

Scott started kicking the floor of the plane. "No, Jean! We can save you! Please, Jean, don't do this!"

The professor spoke up again; "_I've made my decision, Scott." _ Then Professor X said in his regular voice, but in a sad and defeated tone, "She's gone."

"NO!" Scott screamed.

Matt had thought that Jean and Logan were together, but it was now obvious that she and Scott had been. He felt terrible that he didn't help her. He was so worried about getting out of there that he hadn't realized that everyone wasn't on it.

Logan grabbed the man and shook his shoulders, but not angrily. "She's gone, Scott. She made her own decision and now she's gone."

**I'm so sorry that I didn't change the last part of this from what happens in the movie, but I have my reasons for not going AU there.**

**Also, this is it! There is only one more chapter in the story, which is an aftermath of sorts! Again, thanks so much for sticking with me through this.**


	17. Epilogue

**Okay, guys, this is it: the final chapter of ****_ChronicleX_****! I still can't believe that so many people have been reading this story, and I thank each and every person who stuck with me for this long. I hope that you have had as much fun reading this as I have writing it.**

**And finally: here's the Epilogue:**

After the events at Alkali lake, the "X-Men"—Matt still though it was a stupid name, but catchy and simple enough—had went back but couldn't find Jean's body or any bodies of the men that had worked in the secret facility; except for Jason Stryker's body, which had been found washed up on shore, obviously dragged along with the flood. While the dam's explosion had destroyed most of the evidence, someone else had obviously come back and disposed of the bodies of Stryker's employees and finished destroying the rest of the secret facility. Since the lake was so remote, there had been no official witnesses to the events that had happened and it was reported as a system failure.

After leaving the lake, they had flown back to the school and dropped off the kids they had rescued from Stryker. Then, Storm and Scott took the jet to the safe house all of the other students had escaped to and took them back. There were also other things to be done, such as refortifying the mansion's defenses and making sure no hidden cameras or wires had been set up by Stryker's men.

Then, a few days later, Jean Grey's funeral was held. It had featured a closed casket since there was no body. All of the teachers and some of the students that had known her better went to the service.

Throughout all of this, however, Matt had just stood to the sidelines and helped where he could. Matt contemplated finally running away many times, and he even made it out the window a few times. He had had a bag packed since he had gotten back from the lake. But something kept keeping him back. At first it was the feeling of responsibility; he couldn't just run away when they still needed to get more kids back, or needed someone with his powers to help move high or heavy things that Stryker's men had messed with. He needed to feel like his powers made him useful because he felt guilty that he hadn't been able to stop Magento or save Jean Grey. He had thought that he was pretty powerful but apparently not enough to do anything.

Once the mansion was back in order, he couldn't find an excuse to stay; it wasn't like he had any friends here since he'd lied to them. He had talked some to Kitty in the last few days, but he'd made sure to avoid Bobby and Rogue as much as possible since they knew he had left them when he wasn't affected by Cerebro. Of course, it was harder to avoid Bobby, who was his roommate, but thankfully the fallout of the lake ordeal had kept them both busy. Bobby never seemed mad at him, but he wasn't going to test it. Truthfully, Matt was scared of being an outcast again; he had thought he had found another home and more people like him, but now the truth was all but out there that he wasn't even a mutant. He wasn't even a normal freak.

Nevertheless, Matt had stayed at Xavier's School for Gifted Youngsters for the last week as the students had settled back into their regular schedules. Matt had spent the last few days pretending—mostly for his own benefit—to be a regular high school student that goes to class and does his work. But then he received a summons to Professor Xavier's office, which was where he found himself now.

"Thank you for waiting for me, Mr. Garetty," Professor Xavier said as he rolled into the room.

Matt just nodded from his seat. Was he in trouble? He hadn't actually don't anything _wrong._

"I'm sorry we are just getting around to this meeting, but, as you well know, there were extenuating circumstances," the professor said professionally.

"You're kicking me out," Matt said flatly. He had been expecting this, and he knew that they just hadn't done it yet because they had been so busy fixing the school back up.

Professor Xavier shook his head. "You don't have to leave unless you want to."

"I don't think I fit in here," Matt said.

Professor Xavier was silent for a long moment, obviously contemplating what to say next. "Matt, if there are personal reasons that you need to leave, then by all means, I will help you. However, I want you to realize that I made this school to help people, especially those who feel ostracized because of their differences. I have heard of everything that happened from the time the school was attacked until I was rescued—" Matt made as if to interrupt, but the professor held up his hand to stay silent and Matt relented "—and one thing has been made clear to me."

"So I am being kicked out?" Matt asked in confusion.

"No, I realized that you could be a great asset in this fight not because of your powers, but because of your integrity and desire to help people."

Matt gaped for a moment at the compliment. It took a minute before Matt protested weakly, "But this is a school for mutants."

Professor Xavier smiled as he shook his head. "This school might have been intended for mutants, but the sign outside says that it is a school for 'Gifted Youngsters,' and you are definitely that, if not a mutant."

"Can I ask how you figured it out?"

"I knew ever since I first touched your mind that it was different, but I thought that maybe you were just a special mutant with an affinity for mental blocks. But it was Cerebro that made it clear; no mutant is powerful enough to resist Cerebro by him- or her- self."

Matt had figured that the not being affected would have given him away. "So what do you think I am?" he asked hesitantly. Of course, he knew how he had gotten his powers—those moments would be forever seared into his mind—but he was curious as to what the Professor had figured out. Moreover, there wasn't actually a name for what he was since there was only one other person alive, as far as he knew, that was like him. He was pretty sure he was still human though, at least as human as the mutants could be considered.

"I honestly don't know," the professor said apologetically. "Maybe you're the next link in mutant evolution, but I do know that there are ways other than genetic mutation to gain abilities. Do you know how you got your powers?"

Matt didn't answer.

"That's fine if you don't want to tell me," Professor Xavier said sincerely. "However, can I at least ask you about Andrew? Are his powers from the same source?"

Matt nodded, figuring that they would find out eventually anyways; they had the same powers and had known about each other before he knew about mutants. The professor had never actually met his cousin but had doubtlessly heard of him from the other X-Men. He wondered where his cousin was now. Had he ditched helmet-dude and his weird naked sidekick or was he hiding in a hole somewhere with them and doing who-knows-what? The X-Men had sent out many patrols and the professor had done many searches with Cerebro to try and find them, but had found no sign of the three. "Are you going to fight him when you find him?" he asked.

"That depends on whether he is still allied with Magneto or not; your cousin is not our primary target, but if he harms people, we will have to stop him with whatever means necessary."

Matt nodded in understanding. He really, really didn't want to have to fight his cousin again and he didn't want any more harm to come to him, but he definitely understood the need to stop Andrew if necessary. Still, he desperately hoped that his cousin had seen reason since the Seattle incident or at least changed back to his old self.

The understanding look in the professor's eyes let Matt know that he was also thinking of the Seattle incident. Since Bobby and Rogue knew that that was Andrew and Matt, Professor Xavier definitely now also knew that it had been them. "However, I apologize because that is not what I brought you in here to talk about," Professor Xavier said. "I want to know if want to continue at this school."

"You're serious about that?" Matt asked in surprise.

"Of course," he replied. "We haven't had a talk like this since you started classes here and got a feel for the school."

Matt thought about it. He _had _made some friends here, and this could be his chance to actually graduate high school. He had been so sure that he was going to leave that he hadn't thought about what he was going to do if he stayed, but now that he thought about it, he had nowhere better to go. Even though he wasn't a mutant, he fit in here better than he would anywhere else; these people understood what it felt like to be different, to have powers others couldn't possibly understand. Finally, he said, "Yes, I will stay and finish out the school year, but only because this is the only school that will let me in after missing so much of the semester."

Professor Xavier smiled. "That's great, Mr. Garetty." He stuck his hand out to shake, and Matt took it. "Welcome to our school."

**And done! **

**Now, I ****_might_**** post a sequel eventually, but ****_no promises or guarantees. _****I have a general idea of what the sequel will be about because it will start out loosely following the events of XMen 3: The Last Stand, but then turn way more AU and canon divergent than this story was. But since I'm starting school, that probably won't be up for a while, at least until I know that I'll have the time to regularly write and update it.**

**But before that happens I might post a one or two shot following Andrew from the end of Chronicle to when he shows up in this story.**

**I have no set date or title for either of these ****and no promise that they'll even exist at all because I know I let everyone down by never posting a sequel to Excalibur because I lost inspiration**** so if/when I post another story within this universe I will post an author's note as chapter 18 in this story including the title and a summary.**

**Dragon Mistress Syal**


End file.
